With ouster of champs, Clips finally show heart
Saturday will go down as the night the Clippers found a heart. Perhaps it was always there, but the evidence was damning. Eventually all that talent and bravado must yield results, and there is no statement more powerful than the dismantling of a dynasty.
In the wake of a 111-109 Game 7 victory over San Antonio, the Clippers must have felt like they’d won it all. The accomplishment was that monumental. “It’s a shame that this is the first round,” Chris Paul said afterward. The NBA’s dreadfully imbalanced playoff system has never seemed so inappropriate.
Paul can live with the consequences. Playing most of the game on a strained left hamstring, he pulled off one of the most inspiring playoff performances in NBA history. Because it occurred in the first round, it might not be remembered with Willis Reed’s onelegged jumpers in 1970 or the hobbled Isiah Thomas’ 25-point quarter against the Lakers in ’88, both achieved in the Finals.
The Clippers and their fans will remember it, though. Paul willed his way to 27 points and somehow summoned the strength to hit a difficult floating bank shot over Tim Duncan for the clincher. The Spurs know greatness when they see it, and it was heartwarming to watch Paul get long, heartfelt embraces from Duncan, Tony Parker, Manu Ginobili and head coach Gregg Popovich in the aftermath.
As close as it was, this never felt like the Spurs’ game. Their age and inadequacies have surfaced, inevitably, after all these years. They don’t have the killer instinct, and it’s anybody’s guess how their roster looks next season. That’s a discussion for some other time. Saturday night was all about justice, a great player rising to the heights, and a franchise redeemed.
Around the NBA
Pardon a hint of blasphemy, but one can’t help but look ahead. The current state of affairs demands Warriors-Clippers in the Western Conference finals.
After so many years when “parity” was strictly a myth, behold the new day: Cleveland (in 2007) is the only remaining team that has reached the Finals in the past 17 years.
Hopefully that wasn’t announcer Kevin Harlan’s claim, but that of a lame TNT research staff, declaring Duncan-Parker-Ginobili “the most successful trio in playoff history” with a four-title resume. Reality check: Bill Russell, Tom Heinsohn and Bob Cousy won six titles together. Russell, Heinsohn and Sam Jones won six, as did Russell, Jones and John Havlicek. Russell, Sam Jones and K.C. Jones won eight. So let’s try to get a handle on things.
A number of NBA followers seem to believe that the New Orleans Pelicans are on the verge of greatness, given Anthony Davis’ health and the return of their key players. Not so. It’s a very ordinary group beyond Davis, and a healthy Oklahoma City club would have secured that No. 8 playoff spot with ease. The Pelicans will finish out of the running if their offensive sets keep assigning high screens to Davis around the perimeter. He has to make a living down low, humbling people, passing off double-teams or scoring inside at will. It’s so obvious, you have to marvel at the fact that Davis, head coach Monty Williams and his staff don’t have a clue.
Interesting thought from ESPN’s Brian Windhorst: Al Horford, Joakim Noah and Chandler Parsons, all of whom played at Florida for new Oklahoma City head coach Billy Donovan, will be free agents in 2016 (and don’t forget another ex-Gator, David Lee).
Likely to be a recurring subplot in the Chicago-Cleveland series: Noah loves to trash-talk LeBron James. That can’t be a good idea.
Remarkable: Josh Smith and Dwight Howard were AAU team- mates during their youth in Atlanta and stayed close. Their friendship was a big reason Smith chose Houston after he was released by Detroit in December, and now they’re in the Western Conference semifinals together. Many doubt their court awareness and decision-making — former Lakers teammate Kobe Bryant thinks Howard is something of a fraud — but they’ve been a devastating inside combination. “Unbelievable,” James Harden said. “It brings them back to when they were kids making passes to each other, lobs, jumping up and down. There’s a lot of excitement in the building.”
Reader James Ludwig noticed Mark Jackson going overboard on the word “basketball” every time he speaks, and that it has become a ridiculous trend. “You have to move the ‘basketball’ up court?” he wrote. “It isn’t clear what kind of ball it is? The overuse of the word is nothing less than astonishing to me. Does the NBA somehow encourage people to talk like this?”