
(Jacob Gonzalez/Clippers)
It was fitting that Joe Johnson a.k.a Iso Joe a.k.a Joe Jesus hit the jumper over Luc Mbah a Moute’s outstretched arm to essentially seal it. Johnson, a former star whose game remains unchanged despite the ravages of time even as his impactful minutes on the court have slowly decreased, is the kind of role player the Clippers and Doc River have routinely failed to find. It was especially significant in a game where the Clips, sans-Blake Griffin, were desperate for anyone capable of creating their own shot outside of Chris Paul.
This series, however it ends, will be defined in part by the absence of certain key players at extremely inconvenient times for both teams. Gobert misses the first two games after getting injured on the first play of the series. Blake gets hurt halfway through game two and Gordon Hayward misses the second half of game three due to food poisoning.
But while the Jazz have been able to weather the storm of Gobert and Hayward’s absence, albeit two players whose temporary loss lacks the impact of Griffin’s permanent one, it’s difficult to see how the Clips survive Blake’s absence. Redick finally shrugged off his shooting slump in this series and exploded for 26 points on 7-12 from the field and Paul had another impressive game with 28 points (10-19) and nine assists. But that was really it. Outside of DeAndre’s 14 points (6-8), the Clippers went six-for-30 from the field.
The defense down the stretch was also atrocious, as it has been for the last three games. There were countless times where Redick or Crawford or Felton would inexplicably lose their man, usually Hood or Ingles, to help Paul or Luc (two very good individual defenders the team has to trust to do their jobs) coral George Hill or Joe Johnson off the pick and roll–giving up a wide open three pointer beyond the arc.
A lineup of Hill-Hood-Johnson-Gordon-Gobert is enough of a nightmare to defend without ceding open three point shots. Letting Johnson cook in isolation might feel disheartening as he’s burying contested jumper after contested jumper but sometimes you have to live with it if the alternative is giving up an open three pointer.
Chris Paul remains the best player in this series but, in the absence of Blake, the Jazz might have the next best four. Chris Paul is a master of his craft but he has never been the sort of player to shoulder the burden of a team in isolation–he seeks egalitarian solutions by nature. Create the open shot, whether it be for yourself or your teammate.
But what Paul has never been, at least in his years as a Clipper, is the kind of superstar who will take 25-plus shots in a game. He will take over offensively with his individual scoring in spurts, as he did in game 3 to wrest the game away from the Jazz, but the Clipper’s can’t rely on him to exclusively bail them out of every fourth quarter deficit.
However, it’s difficult to see any path to victory in the next two games for the Clippers outside of a sustained virtuoso performance from Paul coupled with a breakout game from Crawford, Rivers, Felton or Speights. The Jazz have too many good players and the Clippers, for what might be the fourth year running, just don’t have enough to match.
Chris Paul is 33-45 in his playoff career.
That’s almost an entire NBA season’s worth of playoff games. That record would get you the 9th pick in 2017 lottery.
Chris Paul’s winning percentage in the playoffs is equivalent to the 9th worst team in the regular season.
The fourth year running? It’s the sixth year running.
The Clippers had the same problems in 2011. They had a fleet of undersized Guards and one dimensional Forwards.
It’s the roster. It’s always been the roster.
My questions still stand.
Who wants to watch this until July 1st, 2022?
Who wants to wait until July 1st, 2022 for the “rebuild” to begin?
What teams do in the off-season pretty much sets in place what they will do in the season. Golden State. Houston, Utah did good things this last off-season, and now they’re doing well in the playoffs.
The Clippers did bad things in the off-season and it lead to their worst record since Chris Paul got here and it’s about to lead to the second straight first round exit.
The Clippers stopped pursuing Durant, because GM Rivers had already committed to signing his son and he also wanted to sign Crawford.
The Clippers didn’t at all pursue Harrison Barnes, and if Harrison Barnes was on the team, they likely would have won their first round series.
They instead signed big contracts with Austin Rivers and Jamal Crawford, and both of them have done poorly in the playoffs.
It wasn’t only this last off-season. GM Rivers has made an endless string of bad judgement roster moves every off-season since he’s been here. And he’s also made the same kind of bad judgment roster moves during every regular season since he’s been here.
And now the Clippers are a little worse of a team — in regular season record, in playoff record and in overall play — than they were before he got here.
He failed miserably at putting a better team together around Blake Griffin and Chris Paul. He squandered all of the tradeable assets.
GM Rivers has been a disaster for the Clippers. He’s got to go.
The A. Rivers contract isn’t big, and he’s proven to be a good defender this year. The mistake like you said before is that they signed him too early, before going after the big free agents.
Yes, you are correct and more precise than I was. it’s not big in comparison to some of the contracts out there. What I meant was that the size of it kept them from pursuing the kind of player who could have made a big difference in the playoffs.
No it didn’t.
I explained this to you time and time again. The only player the Clippers were going to blow up the team for was Kevin Durant.
And you need large contracts to match salary during trades.
But, go ahead thinking Harrison Barnes was the missing piece.
The Clippers should have continued pursuing Durant, but they didn’t. They suddenly completely stopped pursuing him right after they met with him. This sudden stop was immediately after the Clippers told the media how Durant “had been blown away” by the Clippers.
The simple truth, as it was reported by ESPN, is that the day before the Clippers made their just-for-show presentation to Durant, GM Rivers had committed to the three year deal with his son. That made it impossible to pursue Durant.
Everything else was a fake-out PR stunt.
That’s probably the single worse thing anybody ever connected with the Clippers has ever done.
Chris Paul didn’t even show up to the meeting with Kevin Durant.
Doc, Blake, and DJ showed up.
Chris Paul has 33 playoff wins since the start of his career in 2005.
LeBron James has 34 playoff wins since the start of the 2015 playoffs.
I don’t think people understand just how far Chris Paul has been from a Championship.
If he’s as competitive as he claims to be he’ll sign elsewhere this Summer.
If he’s cool with being remembered as a loser he’ll remain a Clipper.
Bill Simmons wrote about the Clippers again.
I think he’s been reading the ClipperBlog comment section. The only thing he didn’t mention was Chris Paul’s playoff record.
Maybe he’ll save that stat for a Free Agency podcast.
I agree with this sentence from the Simmons article, which is the essence of it: “The Clippers squandered the Point God’s prime. ”
And the reason they squandered it is because of the terrible bad judgment roster transactions made by GM Rivers in his 4 years running the team. As I’ve often said: squander, squander, squander.
It is reasonable to debate whether or not the Clippers should sign Paul to another max contract. But his huge beneficial effect on the Clippers in the past six years in indisputable… as is the negative effect of GM Rivers in his four years here.
The Clippers can still win this series. All that has to happen is for the usually mediocre or worse shooters to suddenly get hot for two games. That can happen. It’s happened numerous times in the past and it can happen again the next two games.
It’s probably 25/75 against them, but it can happen.
Chris Paul has a 33-45 record in the playoffs.
A man with a 33-45 record (in the games that matter the most) acts like he’s Michael f**king Jordan or LeBron f**king James.
He’s about to turn 32 years old and he’s still acting like an asshole to his teammates. It’s really working, isn’t it, Chris?
I’m more positive about the Clippers winning tonight than I was yesterday. So many people and so much of the media have assumed it’s all over all ready that I’m now feeling they might surprise everyone and pull it out.
Clipper fans might have the lowest basketball I.Q. among all fan bases.
How many moronic Clipper fans were tweeting about the Clippers blowing it tonight?
Were they watching the way the Jazz were shooting the basketball? Were they watching the way the match-ups were playing out tonight?
Now, the Clippers might blow Game 7 at home but to think they’d blow tonight’s game shows a complete lack of basketball I.Q..
And then Chris Paul immediately turned the ball over twice in 8 seconds.
I guess the “Point God” forgot he was the “Point God” for a minute.
But my point still stands.
The Jazz lost that game because of their shooting. And the Clippers found a favorable match-up with Austin Rivers.
Isn’t it funny that Austin Rivers was more clutch than the “Point God” in the final minutes of Game 6?
Paul Pierce was a +10.
Chris Paul was a +0.
That’s the 3rd road playoff game that Austin Rivers helped the Clippers win.
And he played great in Game 6 in Portland last year.
But who needs a guy like that on the roster? He’d be playing in China if it wasn’t for his daddy, right?