James’ game-winner more clutch than Pierce, Rose banking theirs
As he often reminds everyone, Washington’s Paul Pierce has been a clutch player throughout his career and even this postseason at age 37. The “Truth” (his nickname) is he got lucky on Saturday. Chicago’s Derrick Rose is a former Most Valuable Player who is on a comeback from two reconstructed knees but is showing that at least his fearlessness remains intact. He got lucky on Friday night.
Ability and confidence put each player in position to create a winning opportunity at the finish of their respective weekend playoff games. Those players are great. Those players are clutch. Their game-winning bank shots were neither.
These were not Tim Duncan or Dwyane Wade banks shots that are rehearsed to perfection and taken from angles that improve probability.
Any bank shot from 20 feet or more and launched above the breaks of the 3-point line (Rose was on the “C” of the court’s “United Center”) is luck, including the dagger that Memphis’ Marc Gasol made in another Game 3 against Golden State on Saturday.
It might be due to savvy that each star player put enough push to give their desperate attempts some chance, akin to a golfer chipping too hard but catching the pin.
However, the celebrations of those players’ unintentional bank shots (so far off that they went in) look ridiculous as a parallel to the game-winning shot that LeBron James made for Cleveland on Sunday.
Throughout their conference semifinal series, Chicago’s Jimmy Butler has defended James as well as anyone — ever — over multiple games. James got loose from Butler’s defense and overcame (or overruled) Cavaliers coach David Blatt’s blunders. Blatt deserved a technical foul for trying to call timeout with none left and 8.4 seconds remaining until assistant Tyronn Lue stopped him. Blatt initially called for a game-winning play with the planet’s best player as an inbounder with 1.5 seconds to go — until James “scratched it” in the timeout huddle.
In a corner where he had been 18 for 57 on long jumpers this season, James nailed the winning 20-foot jumper (with the distance he intended). That made Cavaliers-Bulls the first playoff series with two buzzer-beating, game-winning shots since the 1997 Rockets-Jazz series, when Eddie Johnson (swish) and John Stockton (swish) did it.
For Suns fans, what Pierce and Rose did was what Khris Middleton did on his game-winning 3 at Phoenix and what Jason Richardson did off the glass’ box in the 2010 conference finals (before not boxing out Ron Artest).
Pierce is good with a one-liner, saying “I called game!” on air when asked by ESPN’s Chris Broussard if he called glass. Rose at least looked apologetically reserved in celebration after his game-winner, as if he had hit a sloppy shot in billiards.
For this postseason’s clutch banks, think of the one by Chris Paul, who drove and scored on a short pull-up to put away San Antonio in the first round.
Free throws
Center Alex Len, the highest draft pick on the Suns roster (No. 5 in 2013), is scheduled to be the Suns’ representative for the May 19 draft lottery in Secaucus, N.J. The Suns have a 96 percent chance of picking 13th, a 2.2 percent chance of landing in the top three and a 1.8 percent chance of picking 14th.
In the coming days, the NBA is expected to finalize a move to lengthen the 82-game season by a week in order to alleviate the number of back-to-back sets that teams play. Last season, teams had as many as 22 backto-backs. Phoenix had 18, going 6-12 in the tail-end games.
Until Cleveland tied its series with Sunday’s Game 4 win, the higher-seeded team was trailing the series in each of the four conference semifinals.
No team’s offense is predicated more on taking more 3-pointers to emphasize the value of true shooting percentage than Houston, which attempted 427 more regular-season 3s than runner-up Cleveland. But that formula has failed the Rockets, who have shot 28 percent on 3s in their series against the Los Angeles Clippers.
It took Sacramento Kings owner Vivek Ranadive only two years to nail the NBA way, telling the Sacramento Bee: “What I have discovered is that the NBA culture tends to be more of a ‘crony’ culture than Silicon Valley. ‘This is my guy. Hire this guy.’ I want loyal people and Vlade (Divac, Kings vice president of basketball and franchise operations) is loyal.” The Heat Index can be reached at paul.coro@arizonarepublic.com or (602) 444-2470. Follow him on Twitter @paulcoro.