Bashing Paul George’s Attempt At ‘Hero Ball’, Shaquille O’Neal Claims He Didn’t See A Lot Of Positives From The Clippers

On TNT’s ‘Inside the NBA’, Shaquille O’Neal gave his thoughts on the LA Clippers‘ performance against the Denver Nuggets. While LA did lose this In-Season tournament game 108-111, many felt that the team had positives to take. Standing firmly on the other side of the fence, O’Neal explained why he saw nothing that should put a pep in the Clippers’ step. The following is what he said, as seen in the X (Formerly Twitter) post by NBA on TNT.

“Well there was only mistakes tonight… Joker [Nikola Jokic] is not your average big. Because even though you do all this pick-and-roll, and you get him in a disadvantage, what’re you going to do on the other end [defense]? What are you going to do on the other end? 

So, you know, with the small ball, it didn’t work… Joker just posted up, took them one-on-one, or he made plays. I don’t really see a lot of positives. I mean, they got back in the game. [But,] What I never liked about the Clippers is they wait till late to comeback, and they try to ‘Hero Ball’, you know, Paul [George] with the stepback. Like, that’s not how you win a championship, that’s not how you get better.”

Charles Barkley would later add to Shaquille O’Neal’s point by saying that the LA Clippers needed a trade. He was confident that Russell Westbrook and James Harden could no longer change, given the point they are at in their careers. And given that they both need the ball to be great, that doesn’t leave much room for the two to be great together.

Considering that the Clippers have more than simply struggled after the acquisition of James Harden, it’s hard to deny the two NBA greats’ words.

The LA Clippers are yet to win a game with James Harden on their roster

The LA Clippers have now played five games since the James Harden acquisition and are yet to win a game.

That said, the Clippers did look good for a certain amount of time against the Denver Nuggets. In the third quarter, the team looked very impressive, as the ball was moving around, and the offense was running very smoothly. However, even this short period of hope would go crashing, as the team elected to go small against the Nuggets in the fourth quarter.

Given Nikola Jokic’s 6ft 11″ stature and his teammates being pretty tall in general as well, the team exploited this to deadly effect, soon pushing past the Clippers without much trouble.

During his post-match press conference, Clippers head coach Tyronn Lue essentially blamed some big plays and questionable calls going the Nuggets’ way, as seen in the X post by Tomer Azarly.

Unlucky or not, the Clippers are desperate for wins at the moment. But considering that they will be coming up against a high-flying Houston Rockets team before two meetings with Victor Wembanyama’s San Antonio Spurs and Zion Williamson’s New Orleans Pelicans, things aren’t looking too great for the franchise.