One on One with Sam Cassell

On Saturday the Los Angeles Clippers played the Memphis Grizzlies hoping to take advantage of another underperforming team and get back on track with a win. They were successful and looked like the Clippers of last season, aggressive and dominant in the paint, making the key plays that need to become routine if they have any hopes of getting into the playoff picture.

If the Clippers have any hope of moving in the right direction, Sam Cassell and Elton Brand will need to lead them.

How do you approach a game against a team like Memphis, a team that is not performing, is it different from any other team?

On any given night any team can beat you so you don’t have the luxury to take a team lightly; we haven’t been burning up the season ourselves. It is an opportunity for us to get a win and they’re looking at the same way, it’s an opportunity for them to get a win too. So they’ll play hard. But we’ll learn from our mistakes, we should be able to win this basketball game.

Do you look at those mistakes or do you just say let’s focus on the next game?

You’ve got to look at what you did wrong and make the corrections so it won’t keep happening for the next game. I think we did that we’ll see what happens tonight

How are you feeling?

I’m feeling better, a little better, feeling a lot better than I felt two weeks ago.

Assuming at some point everyone gets healthy do you think that will make the difference?

I think so. We don’t have any guys that will be out of the line up for the whole year. So hopefully when we do get our guys back we’ll get back to playing Clipper basketball like we know how to play.

Has Coach Dunleavy addressed playing without a consistent line-up?

He can’t address it that way. He’s got to put together a game plan with the guys he has available, so in the back of his mind he may know and understand that. But with guys hurt other guys have to step up and do their job.

As a veteran what do you say to the guys on the team. You recently had a team meeting?

If you’re hurt you’re hurt. Injuries and hurting are totally different. Some guys' threshold for pain are totally different than others. Some guys can handle the pain but shouldn’t be playing because when you play when you’re injured it may make the situation worse, but it all depends on the person.

There’s a lot of trade talk, when a team’s not performing up to expectations that tends to happen. Can you tune it out or does it affect you.

You know, it’s trade talk, when people talk about it, it never comes true. When twenty reporters hear about it, that trade never happens. Trades always happen when, like the trade between Golden State and Indiana, no one even thought about that; then it happened, bam, just like that. So when people keep talking about it, it never happens that way.

The Clippers play the next four of five games at home then hit the road for a seven game road trip. Playing aggressive, physical basketball will be fundamental to their success in these games before the All-Star break. So will having a healthy and energetic Sam Cassell.

 

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