If there was a good and convincing reason to think that the Los Angeles Clippers would “get it” this season and address their shortcomings, it was that Paul Pierce would be a player-coach on the floor, guiding the supporting cast through the season while being a cohesive presence in conjunction with the superstars.
Bill Russell will continue to be the best-player coach the NBA has known. It will be a good long while before anyone gets that kind of opportunity, the one Russell received in the 1968-’69 season, and does as well as the Boston Celtic icon. Paul Pierce is a Celtic icon on a much smaller scale than Russell, but former Celtic coach Doc Rivers certainly brought him to L.A. for a late-autumn career ride as a guide for other players on the roster. Pierce was supposed to fit between — on one hand — Chris Paul, Blake Griffin, and DeAndre Jordan, and — on the other hand — the likes of Josh Smith and Lance Stephenson.
Notions of team maturity; notions of improved cohesion; of greater and better depth; of more options and complementary parts, finely polished, depended on many players, but Pierce was supposed to be that veteran mentor who showed both the superstars and the role players how to coexist in such a way that the Clippers would take the next step. This would become the team which could play San Antonio tough (in the playoffs or not) and then beat a less savvy, less dedicated, less imposing Houston team in the next breath, the next moment.
Saturday night, the Clippers came upon another moment with the Rockets, their chief tormentor from the past season. When this NBA season was just a few weeks old, and the Rockets were in the midst of their dysfunctional start under Kevin McHale, the Clippers were supposed to dispose of them at Staples Center. They failed.
Several weeks later, the Clippers and Rockets reunited yet again. With Los Angeles slowly rising to fourth place in the Western Conference — not soaring, but beginning to show some small signs of rounding into a team with the toughness and texture of a contender — this latest meeting with the Rockets offered Doc Rivers and Paul Pierce a perfect occasion in which to show that a growth process had taken flight.
Friday night, the Clippers played well, but the San Antonio Spurs — the best team in the NBA not called Golden State — played better. San Antonio didn’t get Tony Parker’s best basketball last spring in that epic seven-game series against the Clippers. With Parker playing near the ceiling of his capabilities on Friday, the Spurs were simply better — and not by much — at home. The Clippers made the Spurs earn that win every step of the way. The loss felt secondary to the resilience of L.A.’s overall effort.
There was just one nuance to add to the situation: The loss was fine… as long as the Clippers came back the next night and took care of those damn Rockets. On the back end of a back-to-back, having played well against the mighty Spurs but without a result to show for it, the Clippers needed to set the record straight against the opponent which most centrally reminded them of their inadequacies last fall.
This was a time for Rivers’ roster moves to bear fruit. It was also a time for Paul Pierce to help the veterans in being ready to respond to this moment, the kind of moment which rises a little bit above many others as a window into a team’s true condition.
How would the Clippers confront this occasion?
We didn’t need very long to find out.
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You could say a whole bunch of things about the Clippers’ loss in Houston on Saturday, but all that really needs to be mentioned is as follows: 38-17.
That’s not an NFL score; it’s the score of the first quarter of that game.
Unprepared. Unfocused. Unable to get back on the bike against a nemesis and perform professionally.
This remains what the Clippers are. The coach who is also the general manager; the player who was brought from the Washington Wizards to reunite with the coach-and-GM and teach other guys in the locker room a thing or two; the superstars who do need help, but keep presiding over spectacular flameouts; they all share in this humbling experience, hand-delivered by the Rockets yet again.
We keep checking in on the Clippers every now and then.
We’re still waiting for a transformation of mindset and disposition, the key which will unlock this team’s talents on a larger scale and change the direction of one of the most snakebitten franchises in American sports.
