Reasons to Stop Suggesting Playing Blake at SF

Over and over again I see people suggesting we move Blake to SF, so I thought it we might as well make it its own topic for awhile or more. This is a bad idea that borders on the ridiculous. He's possibly the best PF in the game. Why would anyone want to make him a lesser player at another position? And he would be a lesser player. In the NBA and even most college and high school systems the SF is interchangeable with the SG position. That is a position that plays primarily out on the perimeter facing the basket. Since Blake is only a marginal outside shooter, his defender could sag and help inside. The idea that Blake can overpower small forwards by taking them inside, just wouldn't work. The defenses would quickly adjust, putting a bigger man on him or double teaming him in the post, forcing him to kick it out. To who? In this scenario JJ Redick would be our only great outside shooter and it's easy not to come off of one guy. Since Blake is playing the SF, Jamal and JJ couldn't be on the floor at the same time. Blake would struggle defensively, wearing himself out chasing smaller players off the picks as SFs, like SGs are often in constant motion. Blake would be chasing guys twenty five feet away from the basket, ruining his ability to rebound and start the fast break. Blake is one of the fastest PFs in the league. As a small forward his speed would be more in the average category. In addition, we would add another PF to the lineup, which would slow the team down even further. Size is great and necessary in the NBA, but team speed and quickness is even more important. We would be a slower team....

I read all your post and it leads me to believe you just don't understand how using Blake at Sf actually works.

The main element you are missing is the fact that we have a stretch 4 on the flow along with Blake.

This changes everything.

Blake would still play at his natural 10-15ft away from the basket. You pull hawes to the perimeter which latkes out the other team pf and leaves Blake 1 on 1 with a smaller/weaker sf he can muscle to the basket with ease.

If the pf doubles down on Blake you kick to the open stretch 4 to knock down the shot.

If the center doubles down we Lob to Dj as we always do.

With he stretch 4 Blake doesn't play the traditional perimeter Sf. In fact he still plays exactly the same, but now we have a mismatch on him in the post.

The only other option is they put their Pf on Blake and their Sf on hawes, then we call a post play for hawes and have him post up the smaller sf.

The only reason his strategy isn't send in the nba much is because finding a PF like Blake who can dribble and play-make at a high level is rare.

Then of course you have to have a legit stretch 4 to make it work.

We have all of these pieces, and if done correctly can cause a matchup nightmare for the defense.

Excuse typos on my phone

I don't know who has been suggesting to play him at sf, he's one of best 3 PFs in the game, I agree. LeBron is the best sf in the game and he played some PF. My suggestion was simply that we put Blake on the bigger guys that Matty cannot handle, AKA Durant, Lebron and THAT'S it. Don't put him at sf anymore then when those guys are torching us.

Good idea to separate this discussion into its own topic. Couldn't agree with the OP more!

If we have a stretch 4 on the floor with Blake, the defense just switches and puts their SF on the stretch 4 instead of drawing their PF out to the perimeter. Not rocket science. So Blake is a PF on offense against a PF, on defense he's guarding the SF spot. That's the end result.

I think we could use a lineup of dj hawes blake jj and paul....at times..

the clips have many options for lineups..

we can also use dj hawes big baby jj and farmer..

the list goes on..

options are great...depends on the opponent..

it makes the game easier for us..

and hopefully will translate into a finals appearance!!

I think we would eventually see our PF, Griffin, turn into Aminu. A person playing out of position with no wing skills certainly a bad idea.

EDIT: Double-post.

Exactly. If an opponent had Blake and they were using him at SF, the first thing I'd do is have my PF guard him and go real small at SF... put Jamal on the wing against their stretch-4 and trust him to get a hand up, then have him cross Blake over and put him on his arse every time down the floor.

The whole discussion just reminds me of guys who customize cars to a ridiculous level.

You can put a big ol' V-12 and bucket seats into a family sedan and make it fly for a 1/4 mile... but it will never beat the car that was designed as an F-1 racer around an F-1 track.

What you have is a novelty item that serves no practical purpose.

Again maybe you didn't read my post, but I'll explain it again.

By reading this post it's clear some just don't really understand how play calling strategy works.

You can't just put the Sf on the stretch 4. Do you realize hawes is nearly 7ft. If you put your sf on hawes he doesn't go the perimeter, you put him in the box and have him back down the sf.

In football you would think of his as an option play. Look and see what the defense is doing and we call the play that counters it.

The stretch 4 doesn't just run to the perimeter no matter what. If he has the mismatch down low you feed him the ball.

No one is arguing that Blake should be the starting SF, but some of us who understand play calling and strategy can see how using Blake at the 3 with his skill set size and power can work with a stretch 4.

It's really not rocket science, and is actually clear as day how it would work.

Keep Blake griffin at power forward. What makes him unique in comparison to the other power forwards in the league is his guard like skills and superior athleticism. It are those small forward skills that make him hard to guard for other big men in the league. Blake griffin is very similar to Charles Barkley in the sense that he can take the ball coast to coast and finish or facilitate a score from his teammates.Playing him out of position will only hinder his development as a power forward. Instead we need to focus on finding a starting small forward that can fit this teams concept.

Then you take that option every time, have your center be prepared to double the incoming Hawes (who is not nearly the playmaker Blake is) and make him try to beat you out of a double-team or make a play. Meanwhile, an all-world power-forward is stuck on the perimeter as a decoy. That is a win for any opposing coach.

Then, on defense, Blake's getting his ankles broken or having to negotiate multiple picks for more mobile SFs.

Once again, if it was a good idea, a coach of Doc's caliber would have tried it.

Hawes was brought in to be a stretch-5 when he's on the floor with Blake. To pull opposing centers out of the paint because they're the only ones with the strength to check Blake one-on-one.

Oh, and this...

...sounds kinda dickish. I'm pretty sure Doc Rivers is making 8-figures a year for "understanding play calling and strategy" and he obviously disagrees with you. You're not some basketball oracle, just a dude on a sports forum.

I agree with this 100%

"Hawes was brought in to be a stretch-5 when he's on the floor with Blake. To pull opposing centers out of the paint because they're the only ones with the strength to check Blake one-on-one."

and this one too by Cleepers

With Hawes pulling the C away from the basket it is going to give Blake a lot of room to operate and make everyone around him better. Now we will have at least four shooter surrounding Blake.

Sounds like a plan. We make Blake Griffin into a 3 pt shooter or clog the paint. That'll work.</sarcasm>

You don't even need to play Griffin at SF to do that. Barnes is adequate defending at PF (Dudley and Granger were last year as well), so you just have them switch up defensive assignments. For example in the game on 11/7 last year against Miami, Lebron only scored in 18 and Bosh only 12; in that game we he had Griffin and Dudley freely switching assignments and it worked quite well.

CDR isn't as a strong as Barnes/Dudley/Granger so we won't be able to that as much with him, but the flip side is that he's fast enough to cross match onto guards which was something Barnes/Dudley/Granger weren't effective at.

Dude what aren't you getting?

1. Have you thought about the fact that the reason Doc hasn't done it because we don't have the stretch 4 to do it? Maybe if mullens or Jamison didn't suck so bad we might have seen it already.

2. Hawes is a solid playmaker. You double down with the center you hit Dj under the basket, that's not a tough play to make.

3. Again you have to pick your poison. If you put a 6'8 sf on hawes he is going to eat him alive in the paint. You put a 6'8 sf on Blake griffin same result.

This obviously isn't a lineup you run all game, but it's one that can be very effective in certain situations.

Again it's clear as day how it can work, but some just can't see it.

Yea to you I'm just some guy on a forum, but you have no clue about my basketball background, and I'll leave it at that.

If you run your stretch 4 down into the post, the double team comes off Blake, who is now stuck on the perimeter unable to consistently hit that shot. Defense wins. Our offense would be a mess. More importantly, our defense would be even worse.

But, now we have Hawes, who you think should be used as a stretch 4, but is in fact a stretch 5 who isn't quick enough to guard most 4's. So now we would have two guys, Blake and Hawes trying to cover people they shouldn't be matched up against. This would be a disaster. There is a reason teams play with a C, PF, SF, SG and PG� The SF and SG can be interchangeable with many teams. With some teams the PG and SG can be interchangeable. But that's about it.

In any event, we will get to see how often Doc goes to his big lineup of DJ, Hawes and Blake. My guess is� Never.

Let's not try to reinvent the game or outthink pro coaches who have invested their lives in learning the game. It has proven you can go small and be successful, at least in the regular season. No one has ever gone big and proven it. The closest to that was the 80's Celtics with a front line of McHale, Parrish and Bird, but both Bird and McHale were excellent outside shooters� Prior to McHale developing a three point shot, that lineup wasn't used.

Wrong.

1. Blake isn't stuck at the perimeter. He is 15 ft away taking the same jumper he took all season, and with another off season probably even better.

2. This isn't reinventing the game. Blake has the skills and speed of an Sf. Are you saying because magic was 6'9 he shouldn't have played pg? He played pg because of his skillset.

3. Blake griffin has already proven he can guard SF's in this league... In fact he did it at a high level. Maybe you didn't watch those games? So that theory of defensive mismatch doesn't hold up.

4. Hawes would be guarding opposing PF's. In today's game many PF's also slide over and play C as well so that's not that big of a deal. He could guard them.

Again this isn't for every situation, but what most in this thread are missing is Blake has the skillset to play the Sf on defense and Offense. You are not just sticking an ordinary Pf at the Sf position.

In response�

1. Blake isn't a floor spreader. He's the guy that other teams have to double team to get other guys open shots. He's a dominant scorer, but the weakest part of his scoring ability is his jump shooting. Also, to suggest that putting Hawes in the post vs. a smaller defender will strike fear into the defense and force a double isn't necessarily true. I think the other team would be happy to have us feeding the ball to Hawes in the post over and over.

2. Blake is a marvelous athlete at the 4. Moving him to the 3 would minimize his athletic advantages.

3. When has Blake consistently guarded 3's at a high level? I've seen almost every Clipper game played since 1988 and I think you are mistaken about Blake being a 3 stopper.

4. Hawes is a slower than average center. His weakness is at the defensive end. Sure, many PF's can slide over and play center at times, but if we are going to count on Hawes to be able to stop them, you will be very disappointed.

Postman, I appreciate your enthusiasm, but we will see just how often Doc employs your lineup. Again, my expectation is never.

Doc has shown a willingness to move Blake to Center at times and go small. We have never seen him move Blake to 3 and go big. We did have a stretch 4 in Brian Cook during the Vinnie years, but we never saw a DJ, Cook and Blake lineup even for a tenth of a moment. It just isn't in the cards.

Exactly. You are sticking an extraordinary PF at the SF position, pulling him away from where he does his best work (74% 0-3ft, getting progressively worse as he moves further away) and letting Hawes (61% 0-3ft, then around 40% from 3ft all the way out to 3-pointers) run the offense from the post.

Maybe this would work for movies, too. You know... pay Pacino and De Niro $20,000,000 apiece to appear in the background as extras, and have nobodies playing the lead roles.

Is that you, Pop?

LOL and SMH at the same time.

I just saw this thread,am reading none of the replies because the answer is,no. top 5 or better PF in the league,done deal.

wow.... not sure how objective the original post is/was, and.... did you answer the question of pertinence: how do you stop/defeat KD and the King and their respective teams ?? wouldn't slow guys down much ?? again, how do you propose we change our fortunes and successfully "slow down" two players who stand in the way of a Clippers championship ?? as far as hasn't been done before, Danny Manning was 6'11" and played darn well opposite Charles Smith for us, and Robert Horry @6'10" won a championship or two @sf, not to mention Bird, who I don't recall if he was quite as tall as Blake, and.... Bird never "worked" inside.... he might of snuck inside, but he rarely if ever backed anyone down on a regular basis in the NBA.... also Worthy never was a "solid" outside shooter, and saying Magic was "solid" and Blake "marginal...." not sure if that flies either ?? and as someone mentioned already, was Earvin the "prototype" pg, or is LeBron even the prototype sf, as he can prolly play pf just about as well as anyone in the NBA, and ditto for Durant @6'10" and an uncanny shooting range. will add that "team speed and quickness" has lost out to KD and the King so far to date, and to say that we would lose out on our 3 point shooting w/Hawes on the floor is questionable. you can shoot the messenger, but we aren't the GM here, and we didn't trade for Hawes, and.... again personally think our D will be better minus JJ or Jamal on the floor, 'specially vs. having both of them on the floor @the same time. and it was mentioned that a Barnes "upgrade" would be nice, and.... who might that be....

This is one of the best discussions in a long while. I suggested this a long time ago but I was a bit drunk. Blake did a good job guarding LeBron. Blake bodied him up stayed close and LBJ couldn't overpower him. This is one of LBJ's major strengths.. Few can beat LBJ's first step but can LBJ guard Blake? Blake hasn't done bad against KD considering that there are maybe five players ever who could guard him. (Wilt who?). This isn't an everyday thing but for short spurts against specific problems it may work.

If he can guard 3's, it is fine. You would use him as a "SF" but he wouldn't play on the perimeter. The issue here is that most teams would rather guard your stretch 4 with a SF than try to guard Blake with a SF, so it ends up not really doing anything. Blake still gets guarded by PF's but not has to guard SF's, not sure if that really helps him or the team.

Then comes the problem with having so many bigs: i having a log-jam like what is happening in Detroit. Of course we do have Hawes, which is advantageous for spacing, but it still may cause problems.

Breakers; I can't answer everything in your post, but I will hit on a few� In most NBA systems the SF and SG are interchangeable in the sets they run, the 2 and 3 are doing the same things on opposite sides of the floor. This is not true of all sets, but it is true of many. Prince and Bradley obviously are not the same player, but they would know and be able to run each other's position in almost any set. And yes, Bird went into the post a lot for the Celtics. I am an east coast guy and a Celtics fan before I moved to California. Saw him play lots of times. And your suggestion that saying Blake would not be a lesser player at the SF "is laughable," is in itself laughable. There is a reason why every coach he's played for has played him at the 4 and occasionally the 5 and never the 3. Players have positions at which they operate at their best and PF is Blake's best. Perhaps the Patriots should play Tom Brady at Defensive End. Of course Blake would be a lesser player at the 3. He's a 4. And to base their positions on height is a mistake. Players play the positions they are best at. According to your logic Durant would be a 4 or 5. Horry, at 6'10" was a SF, who could play a little PF in odd lineups. He was also a specialist who did little more than shoot. Danny Manning was a rare bird who, at 6'11" could play C, PF or SF. But his best position was PF where he had a quickness and athletic advantage over other PF's. He could play SF, but wasn't at his best when he did. In those years the Clippers....

I wouldn't be mad if I saw this in small stints. I had started writing a reply to this earlier but never finished it, and now people like Agent have already touched on it. If the match up is beneficial to the team where you think we benefit more from having Blake guard a KD or LJ rather than Love or Icaca then go for it. I think in the case of Cleveland there best bet is for Lebron to cover Blake because Love ain't going to get it done. If you have a team like Sac and you have Blake covering Derrick Williams at the 3, DJ on Cousins and Hawes on Reggie I can live with that. I'm not saying lets start Blake at the 3, but if it is used for short periods depending on the match up it could be a good thing. We do have a gem in Blake and DJ's speed and athleticism so if this was a way to take an advantage from it I wouldn't be against it.

The one problem I see with this is that we don't get to decide who covers our players on defense. I would rather Curry or Irving cover Paul when we play their respective teams, but it's not up to us or even Doc. A team can decide to throw a SG on Blake and have him flop to try to get fouls.

What Doc can do is make it where the other team has to sacrifice in one area to cover another? It's the same thing we had when Blake was on his tear where teams had to chose to double team him or not. I wouldn't want Blake trying to cover quicker smaller Wings like PG or similar players, but if you have a bigger small forward that is too much for our small forwards and we think Blake is our best bet I don't see a problem with trying it out. There is still people that say Miami needed a true Center, but they still have two titles with that line up.

We don't have too many bigs and we have no problem. Detroit's problem was spacing, not having too many bigs. If Josh Smith was an excellent 3PT shooter and Monroe a good mid-range shooter, there's no problem at all for them.

Meh, positions are not strict. If Blake was playing at the "three" on this team, he would be the three on defense, but an interior player on offense. You don't change his scoring locations and stick Hawes in the post because Hawes doesn't need to occupy those areas, he can spot up on wings. You keep Blake in the post and in pick and rolls and make Hawes a floor spacer. There have been many examples of post-up SF's in the league, Carmelo did a lot of that in Denver, and also when he was on the floor with Novak. Adrian Dantley. Jordan operated primarily out of the post later with the Bulls as a SG.

The real question is whether there is much of an advantage. If I'm a coach I'd rather put a smaller guy on Hawes who will be on the perimeter spacing the floor than on Blake who will kill the smaller guy inside and since Paul came has shot 76% at the rim. The assumption some are making is that an opposing coach will guard Blake with the SF, but why would I do that as a coach? The assumption you are making on the opposite spectrum is that Blake playing as a "SF" would mean you stick him on the wing and make him attack from there, but that's also faulty thinking. Positions aren't static, and coaches aren't idiots. no good coach with a floor spacing big man and a terror in the post like Blake would decide to put Blake on the perimeter and Hawes in the post because of height.

I just don't know if there is any advantage in doing this. Is it less taxing on Blake to guard SF's than PF's? Is he actually better there? If those things were true, then maybe this makes sense, but if it is harder for him, you're just making him work harder on defense, and offensively he's still going to be guarded by bigs because teams don't want to let a guy that shoots 76% at the rim the last three seasons have less resistance getting close to the basket.

agreed.... we'll see if and when it may materialize.... in the playoffs and not likely much if any before that, and.... I also had (Jr.) season tix (pkg) in the late eighties (hard to get anyone to go w/me), and.... will politely disagree, as seem to recall Norman and Loy Vaught as strictly backups unless there was injury to Smith or Manning.... best lineup was Olden Polynice/James "the Buddha" Edwards @C, Charles Smith and Danny Manning @forwards, Ron "Hollywood" Harper @sg, and Doc Rivers/Gary Grant @pg.... seem to recall that lineup blowing out the champion Detroit Pistons @the Palace that year before Manning went down w/his injury.... best Clippers lineup ever,

yeah I miss ralph's play by play when they had the general..

good old days

I would rather have Blake guarding Durant than JJ covering him. I wouldn't say the 2 and 3 are interchangeable. You can use that same argument for the 3 and 4.

Playing Blake at the 3 is not the same as making him a 3. No one is here saying that we need a new 4 and we should move Blake to the 3. This is only for spurts and certain situations.

A great coach will come up with an offense that takes advantage of our players strengths, so don't worry about that end. CipperPostman covered that part. Blake and Hawes are great passers and will find cutters create lobs to DJ. Its about Defense. Blake could finally use his length as an advantage. I remember KMart guarding KD on the last shot instead of Randy Foye a couple years ago and that worked out in our favor. Length bothers some guys (even Chris Paul) and they will struggle against someone with the length, speed, quickness and strength Blake will throw at them.

Again, I'm not saying we should do it a lot, maybe even save it for the playoffs as a surprise wrinkle, I'm just saying it could work out well for us.

Who is interchangeable at what position depends on the player. Barnes (and Granger and Dudley) are SFs that can defend at PF, Bullock and CDR can defend at SG and SF, Bledsoe could defend at PG and SG, Griffin can guard physical SFs and centers in addition to PFs, but would struggle against faster SFs and is lacking as an interior help defender at C.

Griffin would be a good choice to defend a powerful, physical SF like Lebron or Melo, but we'd probably just switch Barnes onto whoever is at PF rather use Hawes or Turkoglu with Griffin; we pretty much never used Griffin/Turkoglu together at PF/SF last year, but we did let Griffin guard SFs with Barnes/Dudley/Granger crossing over. Durant I don't think is a good matchup for Griffin because he's less physical and plays very deep on the perimeter.

lol toohip. I enjoy your posts man, how long have you been on this site now?

Durant is a hard matchup for anyone. From a basketball standpoint he has a very long reach. Kobe has publicly stated that Durant is difficult to guard.