S, 5, E 2: No Excuses, Just Love & Basketball ❤️🏀 You Can Compete, But Can You finish 10-27-26

[00:00:00] Hey everybody, it's your girl, MyntJ on the Black Love and Basketball Podcast, Season 5, Episode 2. Thank you for being here for another episode. Thank you for all my new followers, all my new listeners. I appreciate you being here for another episode and another season of the Black Love and Basketball Podcast.

[00:00:19] What is Black Love and Basketball? On this platform, I talk about love and I talk about basketball. I try to blend the two together, you know, on the basketball court. You gotta have chemistry, you gotta have compatibility, and also in relationships, you gotta have both. So I try to bring them together some type of way.

[00:00:38] So if you love sports, and if you also love love, then this is the podcast for you. And just enjoy and see if it's relatable. If you know a Clippers fan, bring them over. If you know a basketball fan, bring them over. If you know somebody else in love, bring them over.

[00:00:54] And on this episode, we're gonna talk about no excuses. The Clippers have lost their last two games against the Lakers and OKC. And in this episode, we're gonna talk about both of those losses. So stay tuned.

[00:01:09] What's up Clipper Nation? Our team has dropped two games against the Lakers and against OKC. But we gonna talk about this new battle of LA we got going on.

[00:01:26] So no Kawhi. No LeBron. LeBron ain't from LA anyway. So we're gonna, that's really not a battle of LA. Luke ain't even from LA. But we got a new battle of LA. So let me, let me give. First, y'all know I'm a big Laker hater.

[00:01:49] I'm wondering if I have any Laker fans who are listening to my podcast today. Y'all know that I do not like the Lakers. I don't like the Lakers. I'm so glad LeBron is not in LA no more. Am I not gonna like the 76ers? No, I mean, they cool. I just don't like LeBron and I don't like the Lakers and I don't like Luka because Luka's a baby and he was, wah, wah. He was complaining most of the time that he was playing.

[00:02:17] But let's give the Lakers, right? Accolades, right? Well, you know how many championships they have. And I'm gonna give them another accolade over the Clippers. We've met them overall 247 times. The Lakers have won 64% of those games out of 247 meetings that we've had.

[00:02:45] 2012 to 2013, through last season, the Clippers have won nine season series. The Lakers have won two. And three ended in ties. Now I know Laker fans are gonna bring up Friday's game and say, oh, we won 125-117. Congratulations! Congratulations! But one game doesn't erase the years of history.

[00:03:13] We know what you got. We know you got those championships. And we know that you have the 64% of wins. You had the one-up on us. Just like the world has the one-up on us. And you know what I'm saying. But it's a different Clippers team. We have no Kawhi. No more King of L.A.

[00:03:42] We got new faces, new chemistry. We got players that are still figuring it out, how to work together. But here's where I stand at. I don't believe in excuses. And I've always been that way. No matter what. There's no excuses on winning and losing. If we don't have our star players, we have new players, we have players that are injured,

[00:04:11] we are one team, one goal. So, when another team is missing their best player and we beat them, I don't give them a pass. So, if another team beats us when we don't have our best player, then that's just what it is. What I saw on Friday wasn't a team that couldn't compete. I see a team

[00:04:39] that could have did much more, but we didn't because we didn't have the right pieces in place. The right pieces in place, of course, Bradley and Ingram. I just want to see what they can do with what we have already in motion. 26 turnovers, 26 possessions that got away.

[00:05:14] And when you plan with a team that's capable of scoring, you can't give up those type of opportunities. I think Austin Reeves had 28. I don't even care what Luka had because Luka's a scorer. Shout out to Darius who had 26. Brooke had 22.

[00:05:43] So, my question is not whether we can compete. My question is, are we putting them in the right positions to win? So, where did we lose at? And then we have an opportunity to seal that win

[00:06:13] because we lost 117-125. So, if you look at the team stats, turnovers is what killed us. 25.

[00:06:36] And we really needed Rui to kind of step up. Rui has been having a difficult time. He's 5 for 14 as a starter. But, he has to get his footing some type of way. You know, you gotta, he has to get his jitters out.

[00:07:07] And it's fine. Three games in, are we using our rotations right? Are we using our bench right? Our young players? Does Tyloo need to figure out, what does Tyloo need to figure out before these close games become a pattern? You know, Tyloo has had issues last season. I'm not counting my Clippers out

[00:07:36] from three games. It's just three games. But I am gonna hold them accountable. So, Laker fans, enjoy your little win. Don't get super comfortable because you guys are undefeated. Oh, we're undefeated. Because you guys just beat Jazz, which was not even a close game. I think Luka scored 50 points. Good for you guys. Y'all always wanna tell us, go back to Buffalo.

[00:08:06] Go back to San Diego. Go back to Minneapolis. Like, for real. Anyway, that's the end of the Lakers. We played you guys on Wednesday. And, we know what we need to do. We know what little mistakes we made. We need to just clean up on those turnovers. Make sure that we don't make, you know, those sloppy offensive

[00:08:37] fouls. Make good passes. I've always said that. Make good passes. The offensive fouls. Those little sloppy mistakes. Because, in some teams, you can't make those sloppy mistakes. Especially in transition. Some transition teams, like the Lakers, will be able to convert on those, on those steals. And, we'll end up paying for them. And, I don't want to pay for those

[00:09:07] steals when it comes to the Lakers. And that new Kressler. Kressler, he did pretty good. He came out of nowhere. So, we need to understand how to deal with him. And, Brooke Lopez needs to stop shooting threes and get in the paint with Kressler. Because, Kressler has six blocks. And, Brooke Lopez only had three. And,

[00:09:36] he had eight rebounds. Kressler. So, eight rebounds and six blocks? Nah, Brooke Lopez needs to stop shooting them threes. Because, Rui needs to get on his three-point game. Because, if Rui was on his three-point game, then, Brooke Lopez wouldn't have to be shooting threes. Because, Brooke Lopez is the center. Isaiah Jackson is playing the center role. So, we need to have our centers play centers.

[00:10:06] Maybe get Baba Miller in there to get him in that center role. We have, we have options. We have plenty of options. If Coach plays those options right. That's what I'm saying. We have options like football. But, we not, we not playing them right. And, that's what Coach needs to do. So, OKC. This OKC game is what I was really impressed about. And,

[00:10:35] why was I impressed about it? Because, we had the ability to keep up with OKC. It was a pretty close game the majority of the game. What I really like is Wagner and Sanders. I like those two together. I like those two on the floor together. They play well together. They keep up with each other. They read each other. Wagner is so

[00:11:05] brave. His IQ is phenomenal. phenomenal. But, whatever word you can think about under phenomenal. His court vision is excellent. He's just going to go up from here. If we do anything with him as far as trade him, let him go, we are dumb. The Clippers franchise is dumb if we let him go.

[00:11:35] Because, he is a player that is going to be our future. We don't have any capital coming up. So, I think we need to make sure we keep this type of player. Him and Saunders play very, very well together. He will shoot anywhere. He doesn't hesitate. He knows when he should pass it. He knows when he should drive. He knows when he should shoot it.

[00:12:05] He doesn't really get stuck anywhere. I like that he can read the floor. I think he's just an overall good player. And, you know, the fans like him. The players like him. The coach, he's coachable. And it's something about having a player who is coachable

[00:12:32] and some players aren't coachable. And he's one of them. So, I like Wagner. Darius Garland. Darius Garland is doing well. First game at home, he shot at a high percent. Can he do that every single game? I don't know. But, it was

[00:13:01] a good indicator that he's ready to, you know, take this team on his back. And I can appreciate that. He's setting his teammates up to succeed. And that's something James Harden did as well. But he did it at a slower pace. I think Darius Garland has the ability to do that. I want him to be a little bit more, I would say, aggressive

[00:13:32] with his aggressive on the floor because he's a little passive. Well, I wouldn't say passive, but he's a little quiet. But I would like him to be a little bit more aggressive and let his teammates, there's really nobody on the floor that's loud. Everybody is quiet. We're going to need our players to be the same way. And this is the

[00:14:01] time to implement their aggression. Like, Chris Dunn is like that. Isaiah Jackson looks like he could possibly be like that. So, I think that needs to start now. But overall, I like what I see in the team. There's multiple ways to score. Grady Dick looks good. And Isaiah Jackson looks good. DJ looks good.

[00:14:32] Rui, he needs a little help. He just needs to get comfortable. He needs to be put in his spot. It looks like somebody needs to set him up. Or he needs to just go into the paint. You know, he looks like he was a three-point shooter in the playoffs. In regular season, I don't believe he's going to be that three-point shooter. He needs to probably work on his mid-range or go inside the paint. We don't need to really

[00:15:01] rely on him to be that three-point shooter if it's not working, but he is talented in other ways. We can't just rely on him to be one type of score. I guess maybe coach needs to just see how he is in another couple of games. And if he's not the Rui that we thought he was going to be like he was in the playoffs, then we need to figure something else out. We need to figure something else out. But that game, OKC

[00:15:31] game, was close. 101 to 108. We really hung with them. Chris Dunn had 15 points, Darius Garland 16, Brooke Lopez 15, Shea had 34. It was a very close game, but the 26 turnovers in there were turnovers that were unnecessary turnovers. Jalen Williams suffered a serious lower leg injury after contact

[00:16:01] while attempting to score. He was let out on a stretcher. Chris Dunn got a tech, flagrant foul one. If you looked at the game, Chris Dunn didn't do anything intentional, but I guess they had to give him a flagrant. think it was because the way Jalen came down.

[00:16:34] Shea was very shaken up. It was really sad. We let it have time. We were down going into the fourth. We had three minutes remaining. DJ knocked down a three to bring us within one point. So this wasn't a game where OKC just came in and dominated us. It's where we had

[00:17:03] those 26 turnovers. 26. That's a lot of turnovers. That's a lot. Just imagine just 26 times two is what? 52? That's 52 points that we could have had. If you keep giving up possessions and expecting to be a team like OKC, it's not going to happen. Chris Dunn played a good game.

[00:17:33] He had 15 points, five steals, six assists, and two blocks. And then coach took him out the game like he had that momentum. And that's something that Ty always does. He always takes players out when they have that momentum, right? Whenever a player is doing well, they're doing great, coach seems to take them out. You know, whenever they have that kind of energy, he seems to just take them out and we lose that momentum. them. You know, it just

[00:18:02] really bugs me. The bench did well. You know, players were really, you know, contributing. You know, the more the bench contributes, the more they grow, the more they get confident, then we can win. But, you know, to see Jalen get hurt like that, that was really heartbreaking. And I know Chris Dunn didn't do that on purpose. I know that wasn't

[00:18:31] something that was intentional. I know Chris Dunn is like a tough player, but I know he didn't do that. You know, I know that wasn't something that he meant to do. And then to watch Shea, and I'm not a big Shea fan. I'm not, because he's an arrogant player, but their brotherhood, I've always talked about their brotherhood, always. And whenever I see Shea on the mic after the game, Jalen is always behind

[00:19:01] him, always. Either Jalen or the other Jalen. And he's always behind him, and he's always right there during his postgame. And I'm like, dang, you know, that's dope. And I mentioned that in my podcast, I think last season, or the season before that, I'm like, they always be right behind and pumping them up. And, you know, always right there. I think that's super dope. And, you know, that's always part of love, and that's always part of relationships, is because

[00:19:30] you need somebody, or you need people in your corner. You need, if you don't got a lot of people in your corner, you need at least one person in your corner. You need one solid person in your corner that supports you 100%, and that's always going to be there in your corner. And, you know, that's what Jalen and Shea's relationship looks like. Like, Jalen is, like, I don't know what they do off the court, but to see, you know, Shea

[00:20:00] was crying, like, he felt really, really bad for him, and to see Jalen on that stretcher like that, and he just had that face, you know, he's probably going through a whole lot of pain in his ankle or his foot, and I don't know what he was thinking about, but you can probably imagine just all the things that are going through his head of what, of the emotions that he's thinking about. I'm probably like, dang, I just got injured, you know, now I'm off the court, now I can't be there for my team, like, you know, just

[00:20:31] all the stuff that he was thinking about. So, it's just heartbreaking. You never want to see nobody injured. It's three games into the season, and now he's going to be probably out for the full season, so you know, it's just heartbreaking. So, we got to, you know, send our love and prayers to, you know, Jalen, and he'll make a full recovery. He's young, you know, he'll bounce back, but at the end of

[00:21:00] the day, you know, we have to be there for each other and support each other, and you guys got to know a person's intentions, and you can't be mad at Chris Dunn, because it's basketball, it's competitive, it's a sport, and, you know, he came down wrong, and it's just how things happen, so we play the Lakers on Wednesday the 28th, it'll

[00:21:29] be game four, shout out to the Peach Basket, thepeachbasket.net for all your support and publishing my articles in my podcast on the platform. If you haven't, subscribe to my podcast on all platforms. Also, if you want to subscribe to my sub stack, where you can read articles, different articles, community articles, high school, college,

[00:22:02] WNBA, NBA, different stuff, you know, just different stuff you want to read about it. Just, you know, go on my sub stack, and you can find something there you might enjoy. But this is going to end my podcast, and I appreciate you listening to your girlfriend Jay, my black love and basketball podcast. Until next time, y'all, your girl MyntJ is in the building, your press box home girl, I forgot to say that,

[00:22:31] my guy, my man, shout out to you, boo, thank you for giving me that wonderful name, you gave me the press box home girl, I love that, I just absolutely love that name. It's your girl, it's your girl Mitt Jay on a black love and basketball podcast, aka the press box home girl. See you later, LAC in the building. You you