Be honest: How corny would it be if I started this piece with, “It was the best of times and the worst of times for Blake Griffin”?
Then again, that’s exactly what we’re talking about, right? Griffin notched 29 points, 12 rebounds, and 11 assists on Wednesday, the first playoff triple-double for the franchise since the Clippers became the Clippers. The high-flying forward was everywhere — cramming finishes off the pick-and-roll with Chris Paul, lobbing TV dinners up to DeAndre Jordan, and pinging the ball all over the floor from the elbow.
But… well, you know:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJYJnNU591Q
Perhaps what’s most disappointing about this failed play is how in-the-bag everything seemed for L.A. Up 2. Griffin working on Marco Belinelli. If you play that game situation out 100 times, don’t the Clippers win 95 percent of the time?
After the game Blake Griffin fell on the sword. “That game is pretty much 100 percent on me,” Griffin said. “I got the ball, and up two needed to take care of it, needed to get a good shot or try to get fouled and turned it over, so that game is on me.”
Good for him, that’s what he’s supposed to do. However, as costly as that turnover was — as well as his subsequent case of butterfingers in OT — Griffin is not solely responsible for this loss.
First of all, the Clippers missed 17 free throws — almost as many as San Antonio made (19). Of course I’m subtweeting Jordan, who was responsible for clunking 11 freebies, most of which came as a result of the toxic sludge which is intentional fouling. The rest of the Clippers went 14-for-20 at the line. Jordan shot 35 percent (6-for-17); if he goes 50 percent, the Clippers likely win.
Chris Paul and JJ Redick both missed huge shots down the stretch, albeit jumpers with super high degree of difficulty. But in Paul’s case, his end-of-regulation fadeaway was a bit too risqué for my taste.
Griffin compiled half his team’s assists. I’ve never seen him as committed on both ends — hounding ball handlers, scrapping for position on the glass. He hit Jordan with an amazing pocket pass from the elbow down to the right baseline. The pass was so crisp that I had to play it back just to see where the ball went — the traditional broadcast view made the ball disappear.
The Clippers are outscoring the Spurs by 15.8 points per 100 possessions with Griffin on the floor, per NBA.com. He’s assisting on 34.7 percent of team field goals, and his assist-turnover ratio is 2.83 — insanity from the power forward position. Griffin isn’t just excelling this series, he’s the reason L.A. might eventually take down the defending champs.
(Photo by Harry How/Getty Images)
The irony of Wednesday for Griffin is that even in the greatest playoff game of his young career, he was outdone at his position. Tim Duncan, who won his first NBA championship when Griffin was 10-years-old, turned back the hands of time. His bag of tricks was filled like a college dorm beer fridge on Friday night. He leaned-and-rocked-with-it for 28 points on 14-for-23 shooting, and grabbed 11 rebounds in 44 minutes.
Even Duncan wasn’t free from embarrassment on the night, however. He spilled the basketball in the fourth quarter, and missed a handful of layups. Yet, Duncan and the Spurs have mastered perhaps the most critical facet of playoff basketball, something the Clippers do not have in their arsenal: San Antonio perseveres. How many times Wednesday would a less battle-tested team have given up? How many teams could even hang around in that game with Tony Parker leaving with a myriad of injuries?
What makes San Antonio brilliant is its ability to adapt, anticipate, and — above all — be patient.
There’s nothing patient about how the Clippers play the game. There couldn’t be a more antsy team in the whole damn league. I wrote a few weeks ago about how Paul has become underappreciated in recent years, and most of what I wrote can apply to Griffin as well. The Clippers are perceived to be the spoiled brats of the NBA — a team of loudmouths and know-it-alls who carry themselves like they’ve won something, and yet have never made the conference finals.
The Clippers bark all day like a dog tied to a tree. Doc Rivers roams the sideline like Tyrone Biggums looking for smack — his drug of choice, of course, is ripping into referees. You add everything together — the daily “Blake Griffin vs. [opposing forward]” conflicts, Paul’s overall demeanor, Matt Barnes doing Matt Barnes things — and the Clippers can be the most exhausting team in the NBA.
They can also be beautiful, however. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a point guard better than Paul, and I’ll date myself by admitting I wasn’t born until after Magic Johnson was done winning championships. Blake Griffin has evolved into one of the most well-rounded offensive players in the world. DeAndre Jordan truly has become a respectable, domineering back-line defender. There is a reason why the Clippers have such lofty expectations: They are the NBA’s top offense, and their starting lineup might be the best 5-man unit outside of the San Francisco Bay Area.
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(Photo by Harry How/Getty Images)
It’s not a good enough question to ask, “Can the Clippers win a championship?” (Duh.) Far more important, in my opinion, is the need to consider the level of difficulty that comes with making it out of the West, as Tom Ziller does here.
Paul joined the Clippers four years ago, and the team instantly ascended into the upper tier of the conference. However, 50+ wins hardly guarantee a playoff spot, let alone a decent first-round matchup, in the West. The Clippers have been eliminated by the Spurs or Thunder, elite teams, in three of the past four years. The exception was in 2013, when the Clippers lost to the Grizzlies in round one, just one year removed from a 7-game rumble the previous season.
Last season the Clippers were outstanding, turning in 57 wins for a No. 3 seed. Who’d they have to play? The Golden State Warriors… congratulations! Oh, and in the middle of that series, just for shits and giggles, the entire framework of the organization was crushed to pieces. The Clippers still advanced and had the Thunder on the ropes in Game 5, a few bounces of the ball away from an improbable trip to the West Finals.
This year, boy, has a team ever gotten screwed so badly? The Clippers, again the No. 3 seed, got stuck with the red-hot Spurs — the defending champions who many believe are the second-best team in the league. The Clippers shouldn’t be playing the Spurs, of course, and as much as we’re all enjoying this gargantuan showdown, I can’t help but feel guilty about this series — like I’m eating chocolate cake that is a little too delicious. Both of these teams should make the second round, but the NBA’s playoff seeding system said otherwise.
Portland, the benefactor of the NBA’s hanging-on-for-dear-life admiration for divisional rivalries (Joe spits on the ground), is the No. 4 seed for no good reason. It should be the Clippers up 2-0 over the frail, helpless Blazers. Alas, here we are — Memphis catches a break, and the Clippers find themselves in San Antonio Friday night fighting for their lives.
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Let’s not forget this when we analyze the Clippers this summer. Have they won anything? No. However, in a conference with San Antonio and Oklahoma City the past four years, and now Golden State, there is no standing room allowed at the top of the mountain. The Clippers could take this first-round series and ride that momentum all the way into mid-June, or they could lose three more games to the Spurs and head miserably into the offseason. We’ll have to wait and see what happens.
Grantland’s Andrew Sharp wrote about Chris Paul last year, and how his legacy is tied to his teammates. The same goes for Blake Griffin and all great players. Karl Malone and Charles Barkley were championship-level players, too, they just never won a title. (Playing concurrently with Michael Jordan will do that to you.) If this nucleus in L.A. loses prematurely and is broken up, it won’t alter the greatness of Paul and Griffin; it’ll only reinforce how remarkably difficult it is to actually build a winner in the NBA.
