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Clippers' Summer League: Day 2 Part 1 Practice Recap

The Clippers summer league squad kicked off their second day of practice at a place made famous by current Clipper Austin Rivers; Winter Park High School.

Leading the day off in the Wildcats gym was assistant coach Armond Hill who immediately began putting together play sets and calls for the first team; team black. Current Clippers’ players C.J. Wilcox and Branden Dawson were paired with all three of the newest editions to the team, Brice Johnson, David Michineau and Diamond Stone.

After coach Hill finished giving instructions summer league head coach Brendan O’Connor took the helm and had the team to go over a few of the plays they ran the day before. The team had some difficulty with some of O’Connor’s sets but after a while things started to come together.

“The second day of practice had a few bumps in the road but the great thing was the energy, effort and enthusiasm was right back where it was last night,” said O’Connor.

Leading the way for team black were coaches Hill and Mike Woodson while running the plays for team white were assistants Sam Cassell, Brian Adams and Pat Sullivan. As O’Connor oversaw the two teams going over their plays he could see that Michineau was getting team black into all the right spots on the floor helping them covert a majority of their shots.

After all of those drills were done O’Connor was ready for the team to start a live scrimmage. Team white got on the board first with a jumper from Andrew Andrews, that bucket was quickly followed by a layup by black team member Brice Johnson. Neither team was able to pull away from each other as they traded buckets on each end of the floor.

The five minute game was intense from the very beginning with team white holding a two point edge in the remaining few seconds. After a tough defensive stand team white was able to force an off balanced shot by Wilcox that didn’t connect and they took the first game 8-6.

After a quick water break O’Connor had the team huddle up at center court to give everyone a few more bits of instruction then it was on to the second game of the day.

Game two got started off with a bang as Vince Hunter led team white with a ferocious dunk off the baseline. The intensity matched that of the first game as each team exchanged fouls and play had to be stopped so O’Connor and the rest of the coaching staff could get a few play calls thrown in.

Diamond got team black on the board with a smooth assist to Royce O’Neale leading to a layup but it wasn’t enough as the white team won again by the score of 8-3.

“We started getting to the things we wanted to get so we’re showing the signs we need to show and hopefully we can build on that,” said O’Connor.

Once the game was done O’Connor had the team run through a few more play calls with coach Adams giving the instruction. The ten minute session concluded and the first of two practices on the second day of summer league was a wrap.