Jake S.: Glad to see some long overdue D’Antoni vitriol finally find its way onto this forum.

I want this team to succeed. We all do. In a strange way, I admire D’Antoni’s stubbornness when it comes to SSOL. If I had a choice between watching this team win a championship with SSOL, or watching them win a championship through tenacious defense and conservative-yet-effective offense — like the ’08 Celtics — I’d absolutely take the former. In a heartbeat. I think, at it’s best and most efficient, it’s beautiful to watch — sheer poetry in motion. But we’ve only been at our best in spurts that are becoming fewer and farther between.

Given what we’ve watched the last decade, we need to keep things in perspective, and in that sense .500 is more than welcome. But that doesn’t mean it’s not still disappointing.

d-mar: Did I miss anything?

6) Eric Bledsoe outrebounded our entire team.

1) Clippers were on a back to back, and we haven’t played since Sunday, and we’re the team without energy?
2) Clips were missing their leading scorer
3) Clips are an awful road team (just like the Kings)
4) Baron Davis (or the player formerly known as Baron Davis) had 16 assists
5) We made Randy Foye look like Kobe Bryant

Did I miss anything?

“We just couldn’t hit our shots. That was the problem.”

No, Mike. That’s not the problem. The problem is your philosophy, which assumes that the more possessions you have than your opponent, the more likely you are to win. Of course, making shots on those extra possessions counts for something. But you cannot ignore the fact that no one — NO ONE — has won a championship with this kind of pathological disdain for defense. Sure, maybe if Stat and Diaw don’t leave the bench after Horry’s hip check, the Suns win the title. Complete hypothetical.

The problem is, having more possessions than your opponent almost by definition assumes that your opponent has more turnovers. Which, in turn, means they’re either a) so flummoxed by the CRAAAZY tempo of the game, they turn the ball over (which can happen), or b) your defense is good enough on its merits to force those turnovers (happens not very often), or c) some combination of the two. Or that you get more offensive rebounds (laughable).

But if you advance this kind of approach to defense, that basically eliminates the possibility of b). Which leaves you with a), or the idea that teams unaccustomed to our CRAAAAZY tempo turn the ball over at a higher clip. But here’s the thing about SSOL: it’s a style that a lot of guys in the league would PREFER to play, if they had a choice. They LIKE playing that style. Sure, we may be BETTER at it, because we “practice” it more, but it’s also true that the SSOL style feeds into the natural instincts of many an NBA player. We’ve seen it countless times this year: teams who basically do what we do, and do it better. And they play better defense.

Just sayin’: for SSOL to truly work requires players with a very specific skill set. We have some of those pieces, but until we recognize that, at some point, valuing possessions ON DEFENSE is paramount to winning actual basketball games, it’s not…

of course, if they fire d’antoni and decide to change up the offensive and defensive scheme, then I think maybe they can field a strong team with the current squad while adding other essential pieces (big guys who can rebound and back-up PG).