Is it really happening? Are you sure?

Maybe watch the second half again and double-check.

For the first time in the franchise’s pathetic (I’m allowed to say so, I’m a Clippers fan) 50-year history, the Clippers are going to the Western Conference Finals. It’s even ok to acknowledge that the extent to which we’re celebrating this victory with a bit of disbelief is a little bit sad–a byproduct of spending years supporting the kind of organization that doesn’t compete for championships.

In the last decade, Doc Rivers was at the center of a movement to redefine what it meant to be a Clipper. And to be clear, while I still harbor quite a bit of resentment over Rivers’ catastrophic coaching job during last year’s playoffs, his cultural redefinition of the franchise was unquestionably for the better. Long before he overplayed Montrezl Harrell, Doc did something much more fundamentally necessary for LA to become a winning organization: he came in and treated players and staff with respect. In other contexts, it may have been nothing groundbreaking, but in an organization plagued for decades by its historic piece of shit owner Donald Sterling, it was downright revolutionary. Rivers brought legitimacy to a franchise that had long been anything but legitimate. Free agents, assistant coaches, and front office staff from around the NBA carousel started actually wanting to take jobs with the Clippers.

And make no mistake–Doc Rivers won games. The only time in franchise history that the team had finished above .500 three times in a row before Rivers’ arrival was under another Doc–the famous Dr. Jack Ramsay–from 1974-76 as the Buffalo Braves before their westward move. Rivers’ first year with the team was their third straight above .500, and they’d beat that mark in all 7 of his seasons, extending the run to 10 this year under Ty Lue. The only other coach to survive 7 seasons at the helm of the Clippers in team history is Mike Dunleavy, who managed to finish above .500 and make the playoffs once in those 7 campaigns. Even though Doc inherited a Lob City core of talent that had already been to the second round of the NBA playoffs under Vinny Del Negro, the organization itself was still in shambles under Sterling, hamstrung by his ownership in terms of both resources and reputation. By steering the Clipper ship through the transition from Sterling to Steve Ballmer, and critically advising the new-to-the-NBA Ballmer on how to build a top-flight organization in his early years, Rivers was the linchpin of a process that took the Clippers from a joke of a franchise that occasionally lucked into 2 or 3 successful years of talent before squandering it to a legitimate, respectable operation that could sustain success long-term.

The problems the Clippers ran into under Rivers, namely his inability to adequately assess and adjust tactically on the fly during playoff series and that inability’s damaging effect on his roster’s belief in the gameplan, were problems that could never have existed in the team’s first forty years of existence. Managing playoff series is only a valuable skill if your team is not just in the playoffs, but in the playoffs with a legitimate chance of winning. And it’s only valuable if you’re there regularly–when you make the postseason 4 of your first 25 seasons in Los Angeles, playoff game management isn’t at the top of the wish list. And while it’s fair to assign Rivers his portion of the blame for Lob City’s failures and eventual breakup, it’s also fair to note that without a coach of his stature as the face of the franchise, Chris Paul and/or Blake Griffin could have easily forced their way off the team in 2014 during the Sterling fiasco, sending the Clippers back to purgatory and making that core a 3-year aberration of Clipper relevance rather than an actual era of sustained winning. Blame Doc for second round collapses, but acknowledge that we’d otherwise have been worried about Draft Lottery ping pong balls.

That rather lengthy lead up feels necessary to say that I’m about to say: it is shocking how drastically what it means to be a Clipper has changed in the less-than-a-year since Doc left. And the changes have been beautiful and necessary and cathartic, and yet they’re luxurious changes to first-world problems that would have never been relevant if Rivers hadn’t led the Clippers to the first world to begin with. Perhaps it’s just always a bit nicer to tell tales of a legendary figure franchise history in the past tense than live through learning his day-to-day imperfections in the present.

There would be no Kawhi Leonard/Paul George championship window for this franchise without Doc Rivers. The Clippers needed Doc Rivers at the helm for 7 years to make the Western Confernece Finals, and they needed to fire him last fall to make the Western Conference Finals. Life’s just funny like that sometimes.

But just as Rivers inherited an insufficient definition of Clipper and drastically improved it, so did Ty Lue 8 months ago when he was named as Doc’s replacement. There’s no nice way to say this: Doc’s teams quit. Among his strengths, Rivers is brilliant at working with individual players to buy into and blossom within their roles. But collectively, his groups always lacked the faith in team concepts to handle pressure and emerge victorious. In addition to his famous record of 3 blown 3-1 series leads in his coaching career, Doc also blew 3 3-2 leads with the Celtics. In one of them–the 2010 NBA Finals vs the Lakers, Phil Jackson famously said in a timeout huddle (while wearing a microphone for the TV broadcast) that Doc’s Celtics “knew how to lose.” Despite leading by as much as 13 in the mid-third (which is like a 25-point cushion in today’s terms–seriously, the lead was 49-36 with 8 minutes left in the third), the Celtics ultimately lost game 7 of the Finals and watched the Lakers win the championship.

You can speculate as to the potential reasons why, but the laudry list of examples are too great of an indictment of Rivers to ignore. Even this week, Rivers’ new team in Philadelphia blew two massive leads and are now stuck playing for their lives in a game 7 against a vastly inferior Atlanta Hawks roster. Just look at this:

It’s not a secret that Rivers is a fatally stubborn coach (this is part of how he is so successful in earning individual buy-in–he and his players establish strong mutual trust in consistent minutes and role), and as playoff series (particularly in the second round, where every opponent is going to be at least some level of quality) wear on, you simply have to be able to win a basketball games multiple ways to win closeout and elimination games and keep your season alive. Doc was often insistent that rather than overreacting to what opponents were doing, he wanted his team to play their own game, confident that they were the better team and would emerge victorious. But that only works if the talent gulf between you and the opposition is vast enough that an astute opposing coach can’t find weak spots in your gameplan to pick at. Keep playing Montrezl Harrell at the end of the third quarter, and by game 5 Mike Malone is going to learn to take Nikola Jokic out for a brief rest in the mid-third so he can return fresh to feast against an undersized defender. The first thing you need in order to win is the belief that you are capable of winning, and it becomes particularly hard to maintain that belief if you reach the late stages of a series and begin to lose faith that your head coach is capable of putting your team in a position to win. No matter how well or poorly conceived, if the players on the court don’t believe in a strategic plan’s ability to be successful, it simply isn’t going to be. And when they don’t believe in a plan, and then it doens’t work, they’re gonna have an even harder time believing in the plan the next time around–especially when it’s the same unchanged plan that failed the night before.

The 2020 Clippers were a mentally fragile group. That’s not a commentary Paul George’s individual mental health, it’s a statement of the cohesion among the group when things got tough. The chemistry issue was too often framed as whether or not the players liked each other (some did and some didn’t, as is almost always the case when you put a group of 15 people together) and not with the following question: Do the players believe in the team’s ability to win? Basketball players, believe it or not, are human beings with doubts and emotions like the rest of us. If it was hard for us to watch games 5 and 6 against Denver and believe that Doc Rivers and Montrezl Harrell were suddenly going to figure it out and win game 7, imagine how hard it would be to muster up that belief from within the locker room. You try maintaining faith when you’re repeatedly busting your ass to build comfortable leads over a quality opponent just to watch a lazy defender give the game back to your opponent repeatedly.

When he stepped into the locker room this season, Ty Lue had to undo a lot of psychological damage accumulated under Doc Rivers. The Clippers still occassionally defaulted back to their quitting habits. Remember the afternoon of Sunday, December 27th? If you remember the date that a regular season game was played on, that’s a pretty significant game. But as the season wore on, the Clippers began to show a resolve that was entirely unlike them. They went 11-7 without Kawhi Leonard and 9-7 without Paul George prior to two rest/tanking games to end the season. Without both stars, they came back from down 18 in Miami in January to win–and then beat the Heat without either star again in February. Down 21 in the mid-3rd to Atlanta in March, Lue pulled his starters and put in an all-bench lineup that would come all the way back to win behind 21 points from Terance Mann and 20 points from Luke Kennard. In a tight standings battle in April, Paul George stepped up with back-to-back 30-point games against the Phoenix Suns and Portland Trail Blazers, and two weeks later with Leonard sidelined, George had 8 points in the final 2 minutes to bring the Clippers back from down 6 in Portland to win the game.

The team knew they would never face the same kind of real pressure or adversity again until they got back to the playoffs, but they still gained confidence in themselves and each other as the season wore on. It wasn’t without speed bumps, but they gained belief that they could contribute in their roles and that they could win any game, no matter the situation they found themselves in. Virtually everyone on the roster had moments where they stepped up and delivered when the team needed them, right down to Yogi Ferrell signing on as an emergency guard late in the year and having 8 points and 4 assists in the fourth quarter of a win over the Grizzlies. Luke Kennard doesn’t come in cold in game 7 vs Dallas and have 11 points if he doesn’t save the day vs the Hawks in the regular season. Reggie Jackson doesn’t step up to confidently fill a high-volume offensive role in the playoffs if he doesn’t have the support of his teammates as he hits a gamewinner in isolation over the Detroit Pistons. Terance Mann can’t hit 7 threes to close out the Jazz if his teammates haven’t been encouraging him to shoot all year.

There was always a chance that the Clippers would make the Western Conference Finals this season by more or less running it back and doing the same thing with a few tweaks; a competent backup center, a new veteran point guard. But that just didn’t happen. Serge Ibaka missed much of the season with a lingering back issue before finally being shut down for the postseason after surgery. Rajon Rondo has found himself sometimes outside the rotation and a negative presence when he is on the court. And the Clippers didn’t follow the same script and get a little luckier with injuries, shot-making, and opponents. The Clippers became fundamentally un-Clippery. The fragility and rigidity and letdowns and collapses that defined the team under Doc Rivers were all completely undone and rebuilt as exact opposites in 8 months under Lue.

In fact, they got unlucky. Down 0-2 to the Dallas Mavericks in a truly breathtaking display of outrageous shooting variance in the Mavs’ favor, the Clippers had to head to a hostile road environment with their season on the line. The real advsersity was here, fast, and a group of known quitters were thrust into the spotlight. The Mavericks, and 18,000 fans, were licking their chops. The Clippers fell behind 30-11… and came back to win. And then they blew the Mavs out in Dallas in game 4. After a disappointing game 5 loss in LA, they came back from down 9 to grind out a win in an elimination game 6 and then emerged victorious in game 7. Two tight losses to the Utah Jazz to open the second round left LAC in another 0-2 hole… and they responded by blowing out Utah twice in games 3 and 4. Then, when Kawhi Leonard suffered a knee injury late in game 4, the Clippers had to rally around Paul George–the scapegoat of their 2020 failure and the NBA media’s favorite punching bag–for a road game 5 against the team with the league’s best record. The Clippers endured 17 made Jazz threes in the first half and ultimately pulled away to win behind George’s massive 37/16/5 line. And last night, as we all just jubilantly witnessed, the team took a haymaker from Jordan Clarkson in the second quarter and fell behind by as many as 25 before going on to win the game by 12 points behind a 39-point performance from Terance Mann that I still can’t quite believe happened.

ESPN commentator Mark Jackson said at one point near the end of the game that it would have been very easy for the Clippers to quit. They were down 25, Utah was making demoralizing, tough shots over good defense, they’d get another shot at advancing on Sunday, they were playing without their best player. I had already said after game 5 that it wasn’t fair to expect the Clippers to close out the Jazz without Kawhi, and that the season could be considered acceptable if the Clippers lost this series in 7 games. But to stage a 25-point comeback in the second round to advance to their first Western Conference Finals just one season after blowing double-digit leads in three straight potential closeout games was not just a breakthrough for the team or a successful achievement of a goal–it was a complete rebuke of who they were a year ago, a poetic 180-degree turn from fragile to teflon. It is no truer for anyone than for Paul George, who has taken constant criticism that he wasn’t good enough to be a second star next to Kawhi Leonard and yet stood up in the face of his inconsistent playoff track record and delivered two gutsy leadership performances to take the Clippers to the Western Conference Finals as a the only All-Star in the lineup.

Maybe the Clippers could have strung together a couple more 50-season wins and playoff appearances without hiring Doc Rivers. There’s enough talent in the NBA that sometimes short-lived success falls in the laps of the most inept organizations, like the Clippers in the early 90’s or 2006. But without him, they never would have built a legitimate, respectable organization capable of recruiting top talent and sustaining success over a decade-long span. Doing that meant changing what it meant to be a Clipper, and Doc Rivers did that.

Maybe this Clippers core with Kawhi Leonard and Paul George could have lucked into a Conference Finals appearance this year under Doc Rivers if some injury luck and good matchups aligned to present them a path without much adversity. But they never would have built the kind of team-wide system of tactics and trust that could endure the extreme stress of outlier opponent shooting, large deficits (in both series and individual games), and an injury to Kawhi. Doing that meant changing what it meant to be a Clipper, and Ty Lue did that.

I enjoy this new definition quite a bit. I can’t wait to see what they show us next, and even if it’s an unceremonious exit from their first-ever Western Conference Finals there’s a lot to appreciate about a Clipper team that is more worthy of its fanbase’s pride than any team that has come before it–not just becuase of what they accomplished, but how they went about accomplishing it.

213Hoops is an independently owned and operated L.A. Clippers blog by Clippers fans, for Clippers fans. If you enjoy our content, please consider subscribing to our Patreon. Subscriptions start at $1 a month and support from readers like you goes a long way towards helping us keep 213Hoops sustainable, growing, and thriving.

The Clippers made the Western Conference Finals by changing what it means to be a Clipper
Lucas Hann

According to the Philadelphia Inquirer’s Keith Pompey, assistant coach Sam Cassell will leave the Clippers to join Doc Rivers’ staff with the Philadelphia 76ers.

Cassell was a member of Rivers’ staff with the Clippers, but with Rivers’ firing last month and the high-profile additions made to new head coach Ty Lue’s staff, it makes a lot of sense for Cassell to follow Rivers to Philadelphia.

During his long playing career, Sam spent almost three seasons with the Clippers, including starting for the team on their 2006 playoff run. After leaving the team, Cassell signed with the Boston Celtics and won the 2008 NBA Championship playing for Doc Rivers.

Cassell quickly entered coaching after retiring from playing, spending five years under Flip Saunders with the Washington Wizards before joining Doc Rivers in Los Angeles in 2014. He’s spent the last six years as an assistant with the Clippers.

This summer, Sam was linked with several head coaching vacancies around the NBA, most notably being seen as a candidate for the Houston Rockets’ opening and interviewing for the possibility of a promotion with the Clippers. When Ty Lue landed the Clippers job, Cassell seemed like a possibility to remain on staff, but the high-profile addition of Miami Heat assistant Dan Craig and the rumored negotiations with former Brooklyn Nets head coach Kenny Atkinson, longtime NBA head and assistant coach Larry Drew (who was Lue’s top assistant in Cleveland), and former NBA Finals MVP point guard Chauncey Billups, it began to appear likely that Cassell could end up on the outside looking in.

While it’s probably safe to assume that Kawhi Leonard’s longtime coach Jeremy Castleberry will remain on staff, we’ll have to wait and see if the rest of the team’s coaches stay or depart, including former Agua Caliente Clippers coach Casey Hill, longtime Doc Rivers assistant Armond Hill, defensive coordinator Rex Kalamian, and longtime assistants in Brendan O’Connor and John Welch.

213Hoops is an independently owned and operated L.A. Clippers blog by Clippers fans, for Clippers fans. If you enjoy our content, please consider subscribing to our Patreon. Subscriptions start at $1 a month and support from readers like you goes a long way towards helping us keep 213Hoops sustainable, growing, and thriving.

Report: Sam Cassell to leave Clippers, join Doc Rivers in Philadelphia
Lucas Hann

According to Sixers beat writer Keith Pompey of the Philadelphia Inquirer, Clippers assistant coach Ty Lue has interviews with the Philadelphia 76ers, New Orleans Pelicans, and Houston Rockets regarding their head coaching vacancies.

Lou toured the Sixers’ facilities Tuesday, Pompey said, and will meet with Pelicans executives in LA later this week before interviewing with the Rockets next week. Pompey also reported that the Clippers reached out to Lue Monday afternoon after firing Doc Rivers, considering Rivers’ top assistant a potential replacement.

Lue is the most obvious choice to inherit Rivers’ role on the Clippers, given his familiarity with the organization and roster and his championship resume as both a player and head coach. However, some factors could make it a less than ideal marriage. First, the Clippers were clearly dissatisfied with their coaching staff last season–would promoting Rivers’ right-hand man bring the level of change that Steve Ballmer desires? Second, Lue is a top candidate for vacancies around the league, and the Clippers could have to compete with other opportunities with less baggage and other perks (the Clippers can certainly beat out other teams’ financial offers, but do they want to offer a 5-year deal? Will another team give Lue better job security or a say in roster decisions?). And third, Lue and Rivers have a very tight bond–he may not be comfortable taking over the job after the Clippers dismissed the man he’s called a “father figure.”

During the 2016 All-Star weekend, Lue, then the coach of the Cleveland Cavaliers, said “everything I do is Doc Rivers-driven. He’s taught me a lot. Whenever I need advice, I will always talk to Doc.” He went on to say that the two were in almost-constant communication during the years they spent apart, texting to bounce ideas off of each other. It would be hard to imagine a Lue staff that didn’t feature Rivers’ input: “I could be with the Lakers and I think he would still help me out and give me advice.”

That’s not to say that he isn’t a candidate for the Clippers’ job–he clearly is, but a strong relationship with Rivers, and Ty Lue taking interviews around the league, could be hints that the replacement process won’t be as straightforward as some assumed.

For his part, Rivers is reportedly immediately engaging with teams who have head coaching vacancies, and there’s reportedly been significant mutual interest with the Sixers as well. The Sixers could name a new head coach by the end of the week, although Rivers’ dismissal threw a wrench into those plans by introducing an unexpected high-profile candidate, and Lue will not have completed all of his interviews by that point.

While the Houston Rockets are scheduled to talk to Lue next week, it has also been reported that they will interview Dallas Mavericks assistant coach Stephen Silas and Denver Nuggets assistant coach Wes Unseld Jr. With the Rockets having one of the league’s most notoriously cheap owners in Tillman Fertitta, some expect the team to go with a first-time head coach who wouldn’t demand as high a salary or as many guaranteed years as Lue. Last year, the Los Angeles Lakers chose Lue as the top candidate for their head coaching vacancy but the two sides reached an impasse when Lue held firm for a five-year contract and the Lakers refused to offer more than 3.

213Hoops is an independently owned and operated L.A. Clippers blog by Clippers fans, for Clippers fans. If you enjoy our content, please consider subscribing to our Patreon. Subscriptions start at $1 a month and support from readers like you goes a long way towards helping us keep 213Hoops sustainable, growing, and thriving.

Report: Ty Lue has interviews in Philly, New Orleans, Houston
Lucas Hann

Doc Rivers’ departure from the LA Clippers is the latest in a series of moves across the NBA that have contributed to one of the wildest coaching carousels in memory. With so many head coaches on the market and jobs open, here are 10 NBA head coaching candidates that the Clippers could consider to replace Rivers.

There are any number of qualified candidates across the NBA, WNBA, NCAA, international, and NBA G-League ranks who could potentially emerge as a serious candidate for a head coaching vacancy, and even narrowing the list down to bigger names and serious contenders leaves us with far more than 10 potential candidates for head coaching jobs in the near future. Here’s a run-down of NBA head coaching candidates, ranked according to a combination of my preference and likelihood that they’ll land the job:

“Oh Hell no”: Former Golden State Warriors head coach Mark Jackson, Los Angeles Lakers assistant coach Jason Kidd.

Honorable Mention: Dallas Mavericks assistant coach Stephen Silas, New Orleans Pelicans associate head coach Chris Finch, Michigan Wolverines head coach Juwan Howard (who has said he isn’t pursuing NBA jobs), Vanderbilt Commodores head coach Jerry Stackhouse, former Houston Rockets head coach Mike D’Antoni, former Orlando Magic head coach Stan Van Gundy.

10. Gregg Popovich: Like I said, we’re starting with the least likely. It’s hard to imagine Pop anywhere other than San Antonio, as he has been the Spurs’ head coach since 1996 and won 5 NBA titles, including the 2014 championship where Kawhi Leonard won his first NBA Finals MVP. Undoubtedly one of the greatest coaches in the history of the league, Popovich is 71 years old, still in place in San Antonio, and there’s no indication that a departure is forthcoming–but after rumors floated that the Brooklyn Nets could attempt to lure him for one final contending project before his retirement. Now that Brooklyn’s vacancy has been filled by Steve Nash, could the Clippers make a play? It’s very unlikely, but Steve Ballmer is the kind of owner who likes to make unlikely things happen when he gets his mind set on them–look no further than the team’s star pairing of Kawhi Leonard and Paul George, or his purchase of the Inglewood Forum to clear the way for a new LAC arena.

9. Udonis Haslem: After winning titles with the Miami Heat and becoming a franchise legend with 16 seasons on the roster, Haslem has scarcely played in recent seasons and provided locker room leadership as a glorified assistant coach. He’s played just 7 minutes per game in 81 total games over the last 5 years, and saw over half of his 44 minutes this season in the Heat’s final bubble game as they rested players. The Heat are currently in the NBA Finals for the sixth time in Haslem’s tenure, having won the 2006, 2012, and 2013 titles. During this run, he’s been credited as being an anchor of “Heat culture,” and has frequently been seen on TV leading timeouts during the playoffs. It’s unlikely that a team–especially in the Clippers’ position–would hand the head coaching job to someone who was technically an active NBA player this year, but if LAC needs leadership and an improved locker room culture, surrounding Haslem with more experienced assistants (like Alvin Gentry and/or Nate McMillan) could make for a workable staff.

8. Becky Hammon: If you can’t get Popovich, why not poach from his staff? Hammon is one of the best WNBA players ever, and has been a pioneer for women coaching in the NBA since joining the Spurs’ staff in 2014. Her CV speaks for itself more loudly than any endorsement could, but it’s clear that she has earned the respect of players as well, as Pau Gasol wrote that “Becky Hammon can coach NBA basketball. Period.” Hammon seems likely to be a NBA head coach someday, and will probably be the first woman to ever fill the role, but she’s gained little momentum in hiring conversations in recent years. While there’s no doubt that sexism creates significant obstacles for women in sports, it can also be fairly argued that a number of other, higher-profile assistants have compiled longer tenures. The notion of a “line” existing is a bit silly–Steve Nash getting hired to coach a contender in Brooklyn is just the latest example–but it does seem based on league chatter that Hammon is still a few years from being a true finalist for an opening.

7. Jeff Van Gundy: Due to his TV appearances, Van Gundy is a perennial rumored head coaching candidate who never seriously gains traction for any openings. JVG had a successful enough tenure as a head coach–a 57.5% winning percentage in 11 years, 9 playoff appearances, 7 series wins, and an NBA Finals Appearance–to get another job in the NBA… just not a good enough job to lure him out of the broadcasting booth. And the jobs that might actually have brought him back to coaching went to stronger candidates. Remember, for all the criticism that Doc Rivers has gotten with the Clippers, that Rivers has a better regular season and playoff win percentage with over twice as many games coached as Van Gundy in each category, and where Van Gundy has one finals loss, Rivers has two finals appearances and a championship to his name. Most importantly with Van Gundy, though, is that he hasn’t coached an NBA game since 2007, before the three-point revolution. It’s possible that a relationship could land Van Gundy an actual interview for this opening, but the Clippers should find a more creative option.

6. Chauncey Billups: If the Clippers don’t look to their own bench for a replacement (spoilers), they might look to their own broadcast booth. After retiring from the NBA in 2014, Billups announced this summer that he was finally ready to start pursuing head coaching vacancies around the NBA, and he immediately became a candidate for a number of vacancies. Remember how I said the notion of a “line” was a bit silly? Yeah. But it’s understandable why teams would want Billups, a future Hall of Famer who won NBA Finals MVP in 2004 playing point guard for the Detroit Pistons. Chauncey would bring leadership, championship pedigree, and the perspective of someone who was close to the team last season but not directly involved in the debacle that was the team’s coaching staff. Still, I think Chauncey is going to have a stop as a prominent assistant before getting a head coaching job–and if the front office highly regarded him as a coaching prospect, it feels like they probably would have found a spot for him on the staff last season instead of putting him on broadcasts.

5. David Vanterpool: One of the most prominent assistants in the NBA, Vanterpool played and coached under the legendary Ettore Messina in Europe, and then became an assistant coach for the Blazers in 2012 where he worked closely with Damian Lillard to help the young star blossom before moving to the Minnesota Timberwolves’ bench last year. Known for his defensive acumen and strong player development skills, Vanterpool is widely considered one of the NBA assistant coaches highest on head coaching lists–but is he a good fit with the Clippers? LA isn’t quite in a position where they’re in need of a coach who is willing to come in and work closely with young players and focus on development. This team needs a leader who can make adjustments over the course of a playoff series to get them to a title. If Vanterpool ends up on the Clippers’ shortlist, he’ll have to use his interview to prove that he has what it takes to win in big moments in addition to his stellar day-in, day-out reputation.

4. Sam Cassell: If the Clippers are open to hiring from within their own staff and consider Rivers’ assistants as potential replacements, Cassell figures to get an interview. A high-profile NBA point guard through the 90s and 2000s, including playing a crucial role on LAC’s 2006 playoff run, Cassell has been an assistant coach since retiring in 2009 and joined the Clippers’ staff in 2014. Cassell has only received fledgling head coach interest at this point, most notably for the current Houston Rockets vacancy. Sam was drafted by the Rockets and was on the team for their 1995 title run, siphoning minutes from starter Kenny Smith as the finals went on after a 31-point performance in game 2. While Sam should be a legitimate candidate for the Clippers, it feels hard to find an argument for hiring him over fellow assistant Ty Lue, who has significant playoff experience as a head coach.

3. Dan Craig: Ok, here’s my left-field suggestion. Dan Craig, who lots of folks have probably never heard of, could be the kind of sneakily effective hire for the Clippers that Nick Nurse was for the Toronto Raptors and Erik Spoelstra was for the Miami Heat. Spoelstra, of course, started in Miami as a video coordinator and worked in the organization for 13 years before being promoted to head coach, where he’s become regarded as one of the best coaches in the league (if not the best). It only makes sense to look at the best’s right-hand man, and Craig followed a similar path to get to this point, starting with the Heat as a video intern in the 2003-04 season before working his way up through the video room staff, player development staff, and finally coaching staff. In a one-year detour, the Heat assigned Craig to coach their G-League affiliate–he broke the league record with a 40-10 finish in 50 games, won Coach of the Year, and won a championship. Craig hasn’t been mentioned a lot in rumors, but he should be the first call for any team looking for a young, innovative coach who can bring a slice of Heat culture after this awesome Miami run. The Clippers do love to surprise us.

2. Ime Udoka: While he isn’t still Popovich’s understudy in San Antonio, Udoka is seen as the most prominent Pop protege on the NBA’s coaching market. He sat on the Spurs’ bench from 2012-2019 after briefly playing for the team, and was widely thought of as the assistant most likely to inherit the head coaching position when Popovich retired until he departed to play a role on Brett Brown’s bench in Philadelphia last summer (he’s still likely to get mentioned for the Spurs job when Popovich retires). Ime has been a candidate for almost every head coaching opening this summer, and still has a strong shot of finding a HC job with so many openings remaining. He probably is going to go to a younger, middle-tier team, maybe in New Orleans, Indiana, or Oklahoma City, but he’s one of the most prominent first-time head coaching candidates on the market right now and would likely get the opportunity to impress the Clippers in an interview if they conduct a full, thorough search.

1. Tyronn Lue: The rest of this list is a combination of preference, intuition, and gossip, but Lue at #1 is hard to argue with. If you’re looking for a coach with championship pedigree, well, there’s two available, active coaches who have won an NBA title: Doc Rivers and Ty Lue. The Clippers just fired the first guy, and the second guy is already in the organization as Rivers’ top assistant. Before Rivers’ firing, Lue was almost a lock to leave the team this off-season as the top coaching candidate on the market. Now, he’s the heavy favorite to take over the new best opening in the league with the Clippers. It can be a little hard to get too excited over Lue’s great success on paper–three years in Cleveland with higher than 60% of his games won and 11 playoff series wins (1 championship and 2 finals losses)–because he had LeBron James on his team. When James left the Cavaliers, the team started the next season 0-6 and Lue was quickly let go. But while the context of James’ long track record of dominating the league is important, Lue wasn’t just some guy. He made a good name for himself as a head coach working with superstars, and was even able to confront James during games and go away from high-profile star Kevin Love when matchups required.

And while James is likely the best NBA player ever, he isn’t an automatic championship. During LeBron’s first stint with the Cavaliers, the team made just one finals appearance (a loss) in 5 years under Mike Brown. Even during his nearly-constant appearances since, James has lost the large majority of his finals series, winning three times: twice with the star-studded Miami Heat under Erik Spoelstra, and this title with Lue. We gotta give Ty at least some credit here.

If the Clippers conduct a full, honest search, Lue will have the most impressive credentials but could lose out to an impressive interview from another candidate. Remember, Lue is one of three guys who won a championship as a rookie head coach in the last several years (along with Steve Kerr and Nick Nurse). If the Clippers believe in their front office (as they do), they could try to add another name to that list with a first-time head coach. They could also choose to go away from Ty due to his prominent role in the team’s disastrous 2020 performance. But don’t take a delay as a sign that the team is seriously rejecting Lue–the Clippers very clearly went to significant lengths to make Rivers’ departure look amicable and mutual, and promoting his assistant immediately would be poor decorum in NBA coaching circles. It’s even possible that in lieu of a formal search, Lue’s hiring is a foregone conclusion, and he’ll be promoted in a couple of weeks (perhaps with a short list and some other interviews as a formality–or to find candidates to take on Lue’s former position as associate head coach, where former Clippers assistant and recently-fired Pelicans head coach Alvin Gentry would be a stellar addition). We’ll just have to wait and see.

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10 NBA Head Coaching Candidates for LAC to Consider
Lucas Hann

According to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski, Clippers head coach Doc Rivers has been fired and will not return to the team next season.

Rivers offered the following thank you to Clippers fans–and while I had argued that Rivers ought to be fired, it is worth a good amount of appreciation that he led this team through the Donald Sterling saga and into the Steve Ballmer era. Despite his shortcomings in the postseason, Rivers played as huge a role in turning the Clippers franchise around as Chris Paul or Blake Griffin.

Rivers oversaw the best seven-year stretch in team history, going 356-208 (.631) in 564 regular season games and making the playoffs six out of seven years. However, it was what happened in the playoffs that gave Rivers a well-deserved bad reputation: despite having enormously talented teams, Rivers only won three playoff series in seven years and, in historically embarrassing fashion, infamously blew not one but two 3-1 leads in the second round to prevent the franchise from advancing to their first-ever Conference Finals appearance.

The first instance was in 2015 against the Houston Rockets, and the latter came just two weeks ago, as the heavily-favored Clippers blew three straight double-digit leads in games 5, 6, and 7 to lose to the Denver Nuggets, who were then promptly dispatched in 5 games in the Western Conference Finals by the Los Angeles Lakers.

Against Denver, Rivers’ coaching was the team’s clearest weakness: they had no coherent gameplan defensively and no cohesion on offense, utilized horrific lineup rotations that the Nuggets gleefully exploited, and lacked the leadership and poise to win games in the face of runs from their opponents–the opposite of what the LA Lakers and Miami Heat did in closeout games en route to being the NBA’s two finalists.

It’s been a massive summer for the NBA’s coaching carousel, and Rivers is just the latest in a slew of playoff coaches–including Oklahoma City’s Billy Donovan (who has since signed with Chicago), Houston’s Mike D’Antoni, Indiana’s Nate McMillan, and Philadelphia’s Brett Brown–to be on the market.

The tricky part about firing a head coach is finding a replacement who is better than him. For years, that’s been the talking point with Rivers: he makes mistakes, but he brings a lot of good things to the table as well, and who would you replace him with? But that argument has grown tired as the league watched the Golden State Warriors fire Mark Jackson and become one of the league’s greatest dynasties under Steve Kerr, followed by the Cleveland Cavaliers firing David Blatt and winning a title under Ty Lue and then the Toronto Raptors firing Dwane Casey and winning a title under Nick Nurse. All three of those incumbents oversaw successful seasons and playoff appearances, but each team improved under a first-time NBA head coach and won a title after the change.

The Clippers will hope to replicate that formula, which means staying away from retreads who have proven to be not championship-level head coaches, such as the aforementioned group of guys on the market. The most obvious name for the Clippers to consider is Lue, who wound up as Rivers’ number 1 assistant after leaving Cleveland, but if the staff’s performance was poor enough that Doc Rivers was fired by the Clippers, expect them to look elsewhere. Potential candidates could include some of the league’s top assistants, like Spurs assistant Ime Udoka, who has been linked to head coaching vacancies across the league, or a member of the staff of the overachieving Miami Heat–perhaps Dan Craig, who followed Erik Spoelstra’s footsteps from assistant video coordinator all the way to the bench (winning an NBA G-League title along the way), or veteran big Udonis Haslem, who has essentially been an assistant coach in recent years.

While we await further word on the team’s off-season plans, the big news is here: Doc Rivers has been fired by the LA Clippers, and a different coach will be at the helm as they vie for redemption next season.

Report: Doc Rivers fired by Clippers
Lucas Hann

Almost a week after their embarrassing elimination from the NBA Playoffs, it’s time to start shifting our focus on what’s next for the LA Clippers. After a lackluster season that ended in undeniable disappointment, the franchise’s leadership will need to decide what course of action is necessary to avoid a repeat of this disastrous campaign next year.

As we get primed for breaking down the Clippers’ roster, options, and potential targets over the next few weeks, let’s take a broad look at what’s next for the LA Clippers.

What are the rules?

One of the trickiest aspects for front offices navigating the offseason in the COVID era is the lack of details about what’s to come. The NBA Draft has been postponed until November 18th, over a month after the Finals will conclude, and the league has yet to confirm when free agency will open.

The league also hasn’t confirmed when next season will start–and reports indicate it could be as early as Christmas or as late as March. And with a massive revenue shortfall coming as a result of the pandemic (even with the league able to salvage and televise the playoffs, not having gate revenue for a quarter of the regular season and entire postseason puts a massive dent in the books). The NBA has yet to officially decide how to handle that, but to avoid the cap plummeting and causing bizarre unintended consequences (like what happened when the cap spiked in 2016 and the Warriors were able to add Kevin Durant in free agency), it’s possible that they hold the cap flat or stick with the projections for next season.

In the NBA’s collective bargaining agreement with the players, the league and players split basketball-related income roughly 50-50–so the league could keep each team’s cap sheet constant while actually paying players less than their reported salary to maintain that balance. This approach spreads the losses instead of producing a wacky and uneven market. But until we know what plan the league is going to go with, it’s hard to predict what options the Clippers will have available to improve their roster.

Here’s what we know: the team will have the 57th overall pick, some cash to spend to buy another pick, bird rights on and Montrezl Harrell (and JaMychal Green, if he declines his $5M player option), and non-bird rights on Marcus Morris, Patrick Patterson, and Reggie Jackson. In free agency, they’ll be able to add at least one player via an exception, though we won’t know if it’s the full mid-level exception or taxpayer mid-level exception–or how much each exception is worth–until we know where the cap is going to be set at.

Upgrading the roster

With limited tools available to them to add players, it’s important that the Clippers keep their positive contributors–that means that Marcus Morris and JaMychal Green need to be brought back. In order for the Clippers to focus on adding another center who can contribute in the post-season and finding a distribution-minded point guard, they can’t afford to also be replacing one (or both) of their power forwards.

Keeping Harrell should be a non-starter, though a sign-and-trade–while unlikely–could help the team net a return of some kind. The possibility of such a move is dependent on which team Harrell agrees to terms with and whether or not they need the Clippers’ help to facilitate the transaction. Patrick Patterson and Reggie Jackson are both options to return if they accept cheap deals, though Patterson is a good option to provide depth on the roster as a pick-and-pop PF while Jackson is a poor fit with LAC’s primary backup guards, Lou Williams and Landry Shamet.

On the fringes, the team will probably end up waiving or trading Joakim Noah’s non-guaranteed deal for next year, keeping Amir Coffey on a two-way contract, and replacing Johnathan Motley (who is out of two-way eligibility) in the other two-way spot. LA will pick 57th in November’s draft, and could also purchase a pick to add another rookie (the team could keep a prospect in Europe or give them the remaining two-way contract to save a roster space, but there are luxury tax benefits to having the cheap rookie minimum deal of one of your own draftees on the roster).

After that, we get to the team’s two big needs: point guard and center.

Hunting for a guard upgrade

Of the two vacancies, guard is absolutely the hardest to figure out. It’s no secret that the Clippers were in need of guard depth all of last season, as Patrick Beverley’s inconsistent availability in the starting lineup and Lou Williams’ score-first mindset on the second unit left the team cycling through lackluster options, ultimately settling on Reggie Jackson.

The tricky part is finding a guard who is capable of starting in place of Beverley when he’s out and playing alongside Williams and Shamet–both poor and undersized defenders–on the second unit when Beverley is healthy. Jackson wasn’t great at either, to the point that Shamet started over him at point guard when Beverley was injured in the playoffs and Reggie found himself out of the rotation when Pat was back healthy.

Is there a guy out there who is a good enough distributor to start at point guard when Pat is hurt and a good enough defender to make a lineup that features Williams at the 2 and Shamet at the 3 serviceable on that end? Sure, there’s at least a couple, but their names are Ben Simmons and LeBron James–not exactly MLE guys. If the Clippers sign one of the available veteran point guards on the market, like Jeff Teague, he wouldn’t be able to coexist with Williams, and Lou is simply better than he is.

If the Clippers want to get a new point guard who will do more ball-handling, it’s hard to see it working out unless at least one of their current backcourt trio is sent out this summer via trade. While Beverley, Williams, and Shamet are all flawed in their own ways, they’re also all quite good. Making a change for the sake of making a change means risking a downgrade (like getting rid of Lou for the aforementioned Teague scenario). While LAC could certainly use another distributor, internal improvement could also help the team create easier looks. Another guard would help, but not solve, the team’s offensive stagnation. They also need a more sophisticated offensive system with off-ball actions that keep defenses engaged.

If a clear upgrade at guard–like free agent Goran Dragic, or potential trade targets Jrue Holiday or Ricky Rubio–becomes available, the Clippers should go for it, but there doesn’t seem to be a lot of overlap between “available guards” and “guys that are a clear upgrade over what the Clippers have.” Their best bet might be to look for an emergency point guard who won’t be a normal rotation piece (think Derrick Walton Jr from last season), play a second unit that features the Williams-Shamet backcourt with a defensive wing (good thing Rodney McGruder is already on the roster), and hope for internal improvement from Shamet and Terance Mann.

(Almost) any center will do

The more gaping hole in the Clippers’ lineup is at center. While Ivica Zubac had a strong playoffs and figures to keep improving, the team was unable to find even passable minutes from anyone else when Zubac was sitting during the postseason. The team had a +17.7 net rating in Zu’s 320 playoff minutes, but fell to -8.3 in the 309 minutes he sat, a staggering differential.

If the Clippers are serious about doing better in the playoffs next year, they need to replace the guy who had the largest negative impact of any player on the team in both the 2019 playoffs and the 2020 playoffs: Montrezl Harrell. There are a bunch of guys on the free agent market who would be better, and frankly it’s hard to imagine who could be worse. The trick for LAC will be making up for Harrell’s regular-season production, where his volume scoring helped LA stay afloat through an injury-ridden year. Hopefully, a combination of improved availability for Paul George, a full season of Marcus Morris (remember, Morris 19.6 points on 44/44/82 splits for the Knicks last season), improvements from Shamet and Zubac, and contributions from new additions will combine to fill that void.

I’d look for the Clippers to target guys like Serge Ibaka, Marc Gasol, Tristan Thompson, Aron Baynes, and Nerlens Noel in free agency.

Re-signing Harrell shouldn’t be in consideration for LAC. While they have his bird rights and could hope to keep him at a good price and trade him later, they need to get a new guy into a role splitting minutes with Zubac, and a sign-now, trade-later plan for Trez would require playing him his normal minutes in the meantime and hoping a deal materializes down the line. It’s not a risk the Clippers can afford.

A sign-and-trade, however, would be attractive for the Clippers, as it would see them net at least some return in a summer where they otherwise will have trouble acquiring players. But such a deal is hard to work in the modern NBA unless the team looking to sign Harrell didn’t have the cap space to do it without the Clippers’ help, and the base-year compensation rule would make trade match highly difficult if Trez is given a big raise.

Improving the team

Beyond improving the roster, the Clippers’ primary focus between now and the 2021 Playoffs needs to be improving the team. Not adding talent on paper, but improving the product on the court.

Watching the Conference Finals, particularly the East series between Boston and Miami, makes it clear that the Clippers simply never clicked in the way necessary to compete for a championship. These teams fly around defensively in a precise scheme with tight rotations. The Clippers, while talented, were disorganized defensively and never seemed to know what one another was going to do. These other teams play disciplined offense, moving constantly off the ball to create easy looks. Their execution is matched only by the stellar defense they’re up against. The Clippers normally just let their stars take turns running isolation while the other 4 players stood still and watched, allowing the defense to hone in on the ball.

Beyond scheme, these Clippers had a mindset problem. While Leonard’s load management doesn’t deserve challenging (he’s got a degenerative injury and this is what’s needed to keep him healthy), the team’s casual approach to playing good basketball on a nightly basis does. Whenever the Clippers lost in the regular season, it didn’t matter because they were just going through the motions until the playoffs. When poor rotations cost them two games against the Dallas Mavericks in the first round, it wasn’t concerning because the team was talented enough to advance without too much trouble. When they blew a huge lead in game 5 against Denver, the team was so unconcerned that they ran out the same exact gameplan in game 6 and blew another huge lead in the same exact way. What did Paul George say after that game 6 loss? “We’re still in the driver’s seat.” What did he say after the team was eliminated in game 7? That it was never a “championship or bust” season. Somewhere along the way, this team decided failure was acceptable, and as a result they were never driven to the level of intensity required to avoid it.

All of these are reasons to fire head coach Doc Rivers, the man ultimately responsible for the team’s rotations, offensive and defensive schemes, and identity. He failed majorly on all four counts. Even with the lackluster mindset and lack of cohesion on both ends of the floor, the Clippers were still talented enough to make the Western Conference Finals had Rivers gone away from Montrezl Harrell in the playoffs when his struggles were clearly and repeatedly costing the team games–but his stubbornness cost them.

With Rivers expected to return due to (among other reasons) his good relationship with star Kawhi Leonard, whose contract expires at the end of next season, the answer is that instead of finding someone else to do these things, the Clippers will need to find a way to do them with who they’ve got. That means a better coaching job from Rivers to follow what was likely his poorest performance since coming to Los Angeles, increased leadership and accountability up and down the roster, and fine-tuning the rest of the staff.

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Finalizing a staff

That leads us to our last point. While Rivers is likely to stay on the Clippers’ bench, his lead assistant, Tyronn Lue, seems almost certain to land one of the high-profile head coach openings around the league, perhaps in Philadelphia or Houston. Another assistant, Sam Cassell, has been named as a candidate in some searches, but he appears likely to stay put while Lue is almost certainly on his way out of LA.

To replace Lue, the team could look to former assistant Alvin Gentry, who was recently fired as head coach of the New Orleans Pelicans. When Gentry was the Clippers’ lead assistant in 2013-14, he designed the system that was the most efficient offense in the league both that season and the next year, after he left the team. After leaving the Clippers, he became the lead assistant for the Golden State Warriors under new head coach Steve Kerr. We all know how that went.

With over 1100 games as a head coach in the NBA and that track record assisting Rivers and winning with Golden State, it would appear that Gentry would be an ideal candidate to bring more championship experience and a breath of fresh air into LAC’s locker room and offensive scheme.

What’s next for the LA Clippers?
Lucas Hann

You’ve probably seen the meme where Spider-Man points at himself. If I could pick one picture to encapsulate where the Clippers currently stand, that’s my choice. Following a brutal game seven loss to the Denver Nuggets, the Los Angeles Clippers are in a position where they can only blame themselves.

But, first and foremost, I want to acknowledge Michael Malone and the rest of the Denver Nuggets players and coaching staff. Coming back from a 3-1 deficit twice in the same postseason is a feat accomplished by no one in NBA history. All credit goes to Denver, but we have to remember that Denver can’t achieve this if L.A. had closed them out earlier in the series.

Game 5

After the Clippers defeated the Nuggets 96-85 in game four, both teams began the first quarter of game five pretty tight. In the second quarter, the Clippers started to pull away. Lou Williams made baskets inside the arc and Landry Shamet and JaMychal Green hit some key triples off the bench to provide the starters with critical help.

An and-1 from Marcus Morris Sr. saw the lead extend to 56-40, which would be the largest lead held by the Clippers. L.A. went into the second half with a twelve-point cushion, but the Nuggets made the necessary adjustments to make a run. Denver didn’t take over right away, but following crucial baskets from Paul Millsap, who arguably turned in his best game of the bubble, Denver set themselves up to make an all-or-nothing run in the fourth.

Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray needed to step up on the scoring end, and needless to say, they rose to the occasion. The one-two game between Jokic and Murray clicked at the right time, and Denver flipped the score to take a six-point lead with five minutes remaining. Kawhi Leonard hit some big threes and earned trips to the free-throw line to slow the game down, but the game fell in the hands of Michael Porter Jr., who drilled the biggest shot of the game. Denver outscored L.A. 38-25 in the final 12 minutes.

The Clippers sat on a 16-point lead but watched it slowly evaporate as Denver outplayed them on both ends of the game to force game six.

Game 6

This game gave the Clippers a second chance of closing the series out, and the Clippers started the first half strong yet again. A dominant 16-2 stretch to end the second quarter was exactly what the doctor ordered, but the Clippers were too stubborn to take the medication. Despite Paul George and Leonard taking over the end of the second and setting themselves up to finish Denver off, they allowed Denver to take advantage of their poor tactics on both ends of the court.

After scoring 34 points in the first quarter, the Clippers managed just 35 points in the entire second half. Sixteen of those came in the third quarter when Denver made their huge run to trail by just two to enter the fourth. George took responsibility for 10 of those points, but he didn’t receive any help and Denver hunted the Montrezl Harrell and Lou Williams mismatches to burn the Clippers on defense.

A similar theme from game five appears in this one: if you fail to keep your foot on the pedal, you’ll be passed up. You can’t offer a team like Denver the chance to see light, otherwise, they’ll climb out of the dark hole and bury you instead. Once Denver regained momentum, they grasped it with both hands and rode it to victory.

George and Leonard couldn’t carry the load themselves, whereas Jokic and Murray, though doing their jobs efficiently, were supported by Monte Morris, Gary Harris, and others who stepped up because of the momentum switch. The Clippers ended up being the team who lost by double-digits and did the one thing they couldn’t afford to do: go to game seven.

The uncertainty of a game with colossal implications is one the Clippers couldn’t afford to participate in, yet their own mishaps led them tumbling into a game where momentum didn’t favor them.

Game 7

Just like the last two games, both teams kept the score tight, except Denver didn’t allow L.A. to go on a run to end the first half. The Clippers maintained the edge, but the storyline of blowing a significant lead wouldn’t materialize on post-game headlines.

However, the Clippers’ inability to score in the second half did. L.A. only managed 33 points in the second half of a win-or-go-home game. Whichever way you put it, that’s inexcusable. Fifteen of those came in the fourth quarter, where the Clippers showed zero fight; they were ready to go home. It was a relatively low-scoring quarter, but Murray and Jokic opened the floodgates just enough to drown their desiccated opponents.

Obviously, it didn’t do the Clippers any favors that their two stars shot a combined 10-38 from the floor. That’s 26% in a semifinal closeout game; there’s no justifying that type of performance. The two notably scored zero points in the fourth quarter. It’s also why L.A. couldn’t let game seven occur. You never know if the worst-case scenario for your team would happen in the biggest game of the season, but you don’t have to ponder those thoughts if you closed out responsibly.

And if Harrell is your leading scorer after 48 minutes, something went drastically wrong. Denver didn’t completely suffocate L.A. on defense either, because L.A. had open looks. But, you saw George clanking an open corner three off the side of the backboard, which made up one of his nine missed triples from the game. Again, you need to avoid game seven if you can prevent it.

Other Factors

In-game decisions made by Doc Rivers played a massive role in L.A’s downfall as well. Giving Harrell numerous minutes when Ivica Zubac and Green were much better players/matchups definitely cost L.A. points. Harrell’s inability to be a defender at any decent level saw Jokic and company torch Harrell. This stat certainly supports the eye test:

Montrezl Harrell and Nikola Jokic went head-to-head for 35 minutes over the final three games of this series. The Los Angeles Clippers were outscored by 47 points in those minutes.

— Justin Russo (@FlyByKnite) September 16, 2020

Patrick Beverley fouling out early in game six played a large part, too, as L.A. lost his versatility on both ends and needed to play Williams more often. Beverley quietly turned in arguably the best performance from a Clipper in game seven, but it’s going to be swept under the rug now due to the loss.

Landry Shamet quietly disappeared and couldn’t help offensively either. Shamet’s best asset couldn’t be weaponized efficiently against Denver, as he shot 4-18 (22%) from deep in the series. He played limited minutes in game seven due to injury, but it’s hard to imagine him making a positive impact anyway.

Mike Malone, to put simply, out-coached his counterpart. When Harrell and Williams shared the floor, Denver attacked L.A. with pick-and-rolls, resulting in open looks. Because Lou Williams struggled often and Beverley dealt with foul trouble, Reggie Jackson saw minutes too, which certainly didn’t help the defense any. If Leonard and George couldn’t score, Rivers didn’t have a reliable third option, yet he kept insisting that Harrell and Williams would solve those issues. It might’ve worked in the regular season, but the bench duo was unsurprisingly exposed when it mattered most.

The Clippers are now 0-8 all-time when they’re about to clinch a conference finals berth, fittingly ranking them first in that category, per Elias Sports. Just like their blown 3-1 lead in 2015, the blame falls on the entire Los Angeles Clippers organization. With the expectations coming into the season, the lasting effects of this loss could be incalculable.

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The Los Angeles Clippers Can Only Blame Themselves
Sanjesh Singh

Whenever a playoff series reaches a decisive final game, both coaches are likely to add some wrinkles to their gameplans to try and give their team the edge. In advance of tomorrow night’s win-or-go-home game against the Denver Nuggets, here are four potential game 7 adjustments for the LA Clippers that Doc Rivers could be considering.

Boost up the minutes

When it comes to his stars’ playing time, Doc Rivers hasn’t been Mike Budenholzer this playoffs, but he hasn’t been Nick Nurse either. Kawhi Leonard is playing 39 minutes per game and Paul George is playing just under 37. In close games, Leonard has mostly found himself between 39 and 42 minutes played, and George’s range has been similar except for when he’s in foul trouble.

Those numbers are a far cry from the 36-minute “ceiling” that Budenholzer claimed he had for Giannis Antetokounmpo, but they don’t quite reach Nurse’s heavy usage of his starters, like when Kyle Lowry played 46 minutes in game 3 against the Boston Celtics to avoid a 3-0 deficit. In game 7 between Boston and Toronto, the Celtics played their four perimeter starters between 42 and 44 minutes while the Raptors gave slightly higher minutes to Norman Powell off the bench but still leaned heavily on their mainstays, headlined by Fred VanVleet’s 45 minutes played.

Last season in the playoffs, Leonard broke 42 minutes in regulation a couple of times, playing 43 in games 4 and 7 of Toronto’s second-round series against the Sixers. I think he’ll play 42-44 minutes tomorrow. George has played 45-46 minutes in elimination games in recent years, so we’ll have to see how heavily Rivers is willing to lean on him. Doc did suggest at practice today that he’d increase minutes for key guys in a game 7:

It’s a little more dicey to consider how this could impact the Clippers’ other starters, though. While we can expect Rivers to be less cautious about Patrick Beverley’s minutes restriction than he was early in the series, you still don’t want to run a guy into the ground or overplay him early and lose him for the rest of the game. Bev also tends to limit his own minutes with foul trouble, and if George and Leonard are playing 42+, the only remaining available minutes are at point guard if Rivers needs to get Lou Williams on the floor to provide a boost on offense.

Marcus Morris can play more than his 30 minutes per game, has reached 35-36 minutes in some games this post-season, and could probably go for 40+ if asked. But he’s been inconsistent offensively and only average defensively in this series, so it doesn’t necessarily make sense to play him huge minutes unless he’s having a hot shooting night. If Morris isn’t having a super hot shooting night where you can’t take him off the floor, backup JaMychal Green has played well in this series and definitely deserves a chance to get extended run–and Rivers could also play smaller with Leonard and PF and George at SF to create more guard minutes for Williams and Landry Shamet.

Then, of course, there’s the issue of Zubac’s minutes. Doc’s trust in Zu seems drastically heightened compared to last season and even earlier this year, but he’s still kept the young center capped at around 30-32 minutes. Nuggets start Nikola Jokic has been good against Zubac, but significantly better against anyone else–so far this series, the Clippers have won the 154 minutes when Zubac has played vs Jokic by 37 points, while the Nuggets have won the 70 minutes Jokic has played vs anyone else by 38 points. There’s no doubt that Zubac needs to be an important part of the Clippers’ plan against Jokic, but if his conditioning limits him to the low 30s, the Clippers will need a plan for how to guard Jokic when Zu is out.

Switch Jokic’s coverages

From Doc Rivers’ perspective, though, I think Zubac has been more the problem than the solution in this series. Comparatively, he’s been miles better than Montrezl Harrell, whose play has been a disaster on both ends of the court, but Rivers hasn’t been pleased with either center’s defensive impact in this series, saying after game 6 that he didn’t “think either of our 5s were effective tonight.”

I would be shocked if either Zubac or Harrell moved to the bench entirely–no matter how much I think Harrell should be benched–but I think Doc Rivers might reduce minutes for both of them to try alternative small-ball looks vs Jokic in game 7. When things got bad late in game 6, Rivers showed the Nuggets a look with Paul George guarding Jamal Murray and Kawhi Leonard guarding Nikola Jokic. While this leaves the Clippers at a severe disadvantage in the post against Jokic, it all but negates the team’s need to help and recover to shooters against the Murray-Jokic pick-and-roll, as the two elite wing defenders can simply switch.

When the Clippers bait Jokic into contested mid-range looks on a switch, it’s a defensive possession that they’ll live with. But if he has the composure and determination to force his way to the rim against a smaller opponent, it could become untenable for LAC. In the post, the Clippers are at a disadvantage but it might not be as severe as you’d expect–since they have to double Jokic when playing with a traditional center anyway, bringing the double with quicker lineups on the floor just makes recovering, rotating, and switching easier.

If Leonard is drawing the defensive assignment at center for stretches of game 7, then the door is open for Rivers to exercise some creativity with the newfound forward minutes. He could keep Marcus Morris in his power forward role and bring in an extra guard in Williams or Shamet, or slide Morris to small forward and bring in JaMychal Green, who would help with floor spacing and shooting while also helping on the defensive glass. If Rivers is committed to finding opportunities for Harrell to have an impact in this game, he could try to play Trez in the power forward matchup with Paul Millsap. Millsap’s had a good series, and I’m a bit scared of his physicality and craftiness against Harrell, but it’s certainly an easier assignment for Trez than Jokic, and regardless of his ineffectiveness on offense in the playoffs it’s clear that Rivers likes the idea of Montrezl attacking Jokic on the other end. But one of the advantages of playing small against Jokic is the Clippers’ ability to put 5 above-average three-point shooters on the floor, force Jokic to defend in space, and open up driving lanes. Harrell’s paint-clogging interior scoring takes that threat away.

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Tap into depth

One of the biggest factors in a game 7 can be sheer randomness. Because of the small sample size, anything can happen, and role players can make outsized contributions in limited minutes. Just look at game 7 between Houston and OKC in the first round this year: Lugentz Dort shot 29% from three this season and was shooting 18% in the series before he made 6-12 from deep in game 7. Even in a less extreme example, a guy like Jeff Green can come off the bench and make 3-4 from deep. In game 7 between Utah and Denver, both teams shot in the mid-20%s from deep–in a game that was decided at the buzzer, just one hot role player could have changed the outcome of the entire series with a few third-quarter shots.

It’s what makes a game 7 so terrifying: what if Torrey Craig, who the Clippers have been happy to double off of all series, hits 4-5 from deep in the second quarter and forces LA to adjust their scheme? What if Monte Morris has 8 straight points to start the fourth quarter?

But randomness can help you just as much as it can hurt you, and the Clippers have a chance to make a bit of their own luck. Landry Shamet and Lou Williams have shot just 18% and 13% from deep in this series, respectively, with most of those misses being on open or wide-open shots. Between those two, Morris, Beverley, and Green, the Clippers could desperately use some shooting from their role players to punish Denver for helping on Leonard and George: the team is 64-184 from deep in the series, but the supporting cast’s share of that is a miserable 31-103.

If things aren’t clicking offensively, Rivers has a bit of depth at his disposal to experiment with and see what sticks. At guard, Reggie Jackson has been awful as a Clipper at pretty much everything but shooting–but he made 57% of his threes in the first round before playing his way out of the rotation against Denver. At power forward, Patrick Patterson played a ton of minutes for LA this year as a floor-spacer before the Morris acquisition, shooting 39% from three. He hasn’t played a meaningful minute here in the playoffs, but could particularly be a sturdy veteran option at power forward against Millsap if the Clippers slide Morris to SF and put Kawhi at C on Jokic.

There’s also the outside chance that Rivers calls upon little-used veteran Joakim Noah. He’s clearly not happy with how Zubac and Harrell have defended Jokic, but has limited options–and when he was frustrated with Zubac in the third quarter of game 6 and pulled him early, he could only turn to the significantly worse Harrell who opened the floodgates for Denver’s offense. Slowing down Jokic by putting in Harrell is like putting out a fire with lighter fluid. Noah is a more viable choice in an emergency, even if there are a number of small-ball looks that are probably preferable to calling on someone so rusty in such a crucial moment.

Make Denver defend on the weak side

As much as the focus of the conversation in this series has been how the Clippers match up defensively agains Jokic–and how awful they’ve been on that end with Harrell in the game, Rivers has reiterated that he thinks their offense is letting their defense down.

While he might be downplaying other issues that are legitimate problems, he’s not wrong about the offense. The Clippers have been remarkably stagnant, particularly in the second halves of games–in games 5 and 6, they scored a total of just 84 second-half points while shooting 31% from the field and 27.5% from deep. These problems beget other problems: because they miss so many shots, they’ve been outrebounded during both of Denver’s second-half comebacks, and that means the Nuggets are able to play faster and get better looks in on the break and in secondary transition on offense. While Denver’s 24-52 (46%) shooting from deep over the last two games is significantly above their average–particularly the 7-9 from three they’ve put up in each fourth quarter–they’re getting good looks against a defense that isn’t set.

The Clippers don’t have time to install a full motion offense in one day, but they can absolutely instruct their players to emphasize simple off-ball actions that everyone knows–pin down screens for shooters, flare screens on the weak side while Kawhi or PG is running the pick-and-roll, or even some rudimentary floppy and elevator actions that the team has done on occasion for George this year.

Doc Rivers likes to say that this is a make or miss league, and it’s largely true. Sometimes a sharpshooter misses a wide open shot in the corner, sometimes Kawhi Leonard elevates over perfect defense and nails a 18-footer. The Clippers’ stars are missing during the stretches that the Nuggets are going on runs.

But a coach isn’t helpless. Spacing the floor can help open up driving lanes to give Leonard and George higher-efficiency opportunities on their drives. Targeting certain players, like Michael Porter Jr. and Nikola Jokic, in pick-and-rolls can create advantageous switches. Executing weak-side actions helps everyone–not only would Morris setting a flare screen for Shamet potentially help Landry get a good look from the corner, but it could leave Morris open to pop out to the wing as well as distract their defenders from fully digging in to help on dribble penetration.

After the disaster of game 6, the Clippers don’t just need “more focus” or to “play harder.” They need to tactically adjust to prod at Denver’s weaknesses, just as the Nuggets have successfully identified and exploited LA’s in the last two games.

4 Key Game 7 Adjustments for the Clippers
Lucas Hann

What’s left to say? Montrezl Harrell and Doc Rivers continue to spot opponents victories in games the Clippers cannot afford to lose, and the Nuggets took advantage to tie the series 3-3.

The LA Clippers led the Denver Nuggets by 19 points, 68-49, with 10:10 left to play in the third quarter of game 6.

The Denver Nuggets won the game 111-98. A 62-30 close, an absolute rout. By the end, both teams had emptied their benches in garbage time.

Throughout the game, the Nuggets did a lot of things right. Nikola Jokic put up a tremendous effort in an elimination game, finishing with 34 points, 14 rebounds, and 7 assists on an efficient 13-22 from the field and 4-6 from deep. Jamal Murray had what might have been his most impactful game of the series, picking his spots against LAC’s pressure to finish with 21 points and 5 assists on a hyper-efficient 9-13 shooting. Murray also left the game after a collision at the rim with Paul George and clearly played through pain for much of Denver’s second-half run.

Sneaky contributions from the Nuggets’ bench kept them in the game: the never-quiet Michael Porter Jr. had 13 points and 7 rebounds, but even oft-maligned role players like Torrey Craig and Monte Morris contributed, combining for 17 points, 5 assists, 6 rebounds, and 0 turnovers on 7-11 from the field. That might feel small, but it’s huge–especially as LAC’s role players continue their uncharacteristic shooting struggles, particularly Landry Shamet who missed all three of his good looks from deep tonight and is now just 3-17 from beyond the arc in this series. The Clippers, of course, struggle to contain Jokic, but it’s particularly brutal to lose the 8 minutes where he rests and Mason Plumlee is on the court, and that happened tonight.

The Nuggets have also benefited from some luck. That’s not a critique, or an excuse, or a dismissal of all the things they do right, it’s just an analysis of the shooting data: Denver averages 35.9% from three as a team, and playing without one of their better and higher-volume shooters in Will Barton, they’re now at 44.4% and 48% in their last two comeback wins. Importantly, that includes shooting 7-9 from deep in the fourth quarter of game 5 and the fourth quarter of game 6. That efficiency is only possible because of a bunch of good stuff the Nuggets do, from staying engaged mentally to playing active defense to create looks in secondary transition to committing to their ball movement and trusting each other to find the open man. Even when you do all that stuff, shots falling at such a high rate for two straight fourth quarters requires a bit of good fortune, but the Nuggets are making their own luck.

The Clippers, too, are making their own luck. Montrezl Harrell and Doc Rivers tanked the Clippers vs the Nuggets. It’s unlucky to go cold from the field and it’s unlucky for your opponent to get hot. Basketball is a game of runs, and everyone seems to watch leads evaporate from time to time. But through a bizarre combination of flawed personnel, confusing gameplans, and indefensible lineup choices, Doc Rivers has positioned this Clippers team to be particularly vulnerable to allowing runs. The story of this game, just as much as Nikola Jokic’s great play, is Rivers once again throwing away a large lead by overplaying his unbelievably bad backup center, Montrezl Harrell.

In a first half that the Clippers won by 16, the team lost Harrell’s minutes by 4. In a second half that the Clippers lost by 29, the team lost Harrell’s minutes by 15.

Of course, that means that the Clippers also lost by a substantial margin when Trez was on the bench in the second half, which is true. But even when the team is bleeding, they bleed worse with Harrell, losing by more in the 8:30 that he was on the court than the 15:30 that he was off. This Nuggets team has proven that they are not going to quit, and for Rivers to give them a free pass for 8 minutes of the second half is inexcusable. The Clippers cannot score, defend, or rebound with Harrell on the floor: in this game, they had a 79.4 offensive rating and a 139.4 defensive rating with Trez on, compared to a 114.5 offensive rating and 101.6 defensive rating with him off. The team grabbed just 37.5% of available rebounds with him on the floor, compared to 52.5% with him off, and Harrell himself finished with just 1 rebound in 15 minutes.

It would not be so frustrating if Trez had simply had a bad game, but this has been the story of the playoffs for the Clippers. The team has a net rating of +17.6 whenever he is on the bench, and -11.4 when he is on the court, leaving him with the largest negative impact on the team by a mile. They grab 46.9% of available rebounds with him on the floor and 54% with him off. And while you constantly hunt for context in lineup data, especially when dealing with small sample sizes, Harrell’s impact is actually worse than the data suggests, not better: his best stint of the playoffs game in garbage time of game 4 vs Dallas, and the minutes where he shares the floor with the Clippers’ wing trio of Paul George, Kawhi Leonard, and Marcus Morris are enough to swing that lineup from a +11 net rating to a -19.6.

A lot of things happen in 48 minutes. Jokic was great, Murray fought, the Nuggets executed while the Clippers stagnated. LAC’s offense stagnated, as it did in the second half of game 5 and as it has over the course of the season. Rivers hasn’t installed much of a system and Leonard and George’s individual greatness sometimes results in strings of misses. The role players continue to shoot the ball incredibly poorly when the ball is kicked out to them, allowing Denver’s defense to collapse (LAC was 10-27 from deep tonight but 7-14 came from Kawhi and PG). Harrell’s struggles aside, Zubac has had back-to-back rough nights, failing to consistently finish inside on rolls, dump-offs, and offensive rebounds. Kawhi Leonard, for all his talent, needs to be better in closeout games. Just 25 points on 8-18 shooting isn’t enough production.

But through all of it, the game swung when Rivers opened Pandora’s box by putting Montrezl Harrell on the floor in the third quarter. Removing Zubac because he’s struggling defensively and inserting Harrell is like putting out a fire by squirting lighter fluid at it. It cost the Clippers both of the games they lost against the Dallas Mavericks, and it’s cost them two straight closeout games here against Denver. Rivers’ over-reliance on Harrell has resulted in Clippers losses against Dallas, and now the Nuggets. Rivers has now had a 3-1 lead in the second round with the Clippers twice in his tenure, and let the series slip to a game 7 both times. In 2015, the Clippers lost to the Houston Rockets.

If the Clippers lose again on Tuesday, Rivers shouldn’t be on the plane back to LA.

Harrell, Rivers tank Clippers in game 6 vs Nuggets, 111-98
Lucas Hann

When it comes to big playoff games, Clippers fans are all too familiar with the worst kind of pain: a blown lead. Last night, LA were once again caught reeling in a game that would have sent them to their first-ever Western Conference Finals, blowing a big lead and losing in heartbreaking fashion to the Denver Nuggets. Their largest lead in the game was 16 points, 56-40 near the end of the 2nd, but they also led by 13, 80-67, with 1:25 left in the third quarter. By 5:48 to play, Denver had taken a 6-point lead at 94-88–a 19-point swing resulting from a 27-8 run that spanned nearly 8 minutes of game time.

Through the grief, Clippers fans are also asking: why does this always happen to us? The team, of course, infamously blew some notable playoff leads during the Lob City era: a 13-point lead with 4 minutes left in game 5 of their 2014 2nd round series vs OKC and a 19-point second half lead against the Houston Rockets in game 6 of that 2015 2nd round series. But they also seem to be particularly prone to letting double-digit advantages slip away in this postseason. Let’s take a look at each game so far:

• DAL G1: Clips take an early 16-point lead, but fall behind by as much as 14–a 30-point swing–before going on to win.
• DAL G2: Clips lose wire-to-wire.
• DAL G3: The Clippers separate by as much as 18 points in the fourth and hold off a late Mavs run that cuts the final deficit to 8.
• DAL G4: LAC leads by as much as 21 in the first half before blowing the lead and falling behind by as much as 12. They came back to force OT, losing at the buzzer.
• DAL G5: Clips separate early and the game never gets within double digits for the last three quarters.
• DAL G6: Clippers separate in the third quarter, going up by as much as 23 halfway through the third and holding on to win despite the Mavs cutting the lead to just 6 at the 9:00 mark in the fourth quarter.
• DEN G1: LAC pulls away in the 2nd and the fatigued Nuggets have no energy for a comeback.
• DEN G2: The Nuggets get their lead to 20 in 2nd quarter and again in the 3rd, and while LAC cuts the lead to 5 in the 4th they ultimately lose.
• DEN G3: Denver builds a couple smaller leads–12 points in the second quarter, 10 in the 3rd, 7 in the 4th–before LAC wins it late.
• DEN G4: The Clippers jump out to a big early lead, and despite the Nuggets tying the game in the third, LA goes on a run to build an even bigger 19-point lead and win the game.
• DEN G5: As mentioned above, LAC’s 13-point second half lead is undone by a 27-8 run in the late 3rd and early 4th quarters.

Can we learn anything from looking at it that way? The first takeaway might be that most first-half leads evaporate at some point over the course of a game. Basketball is a game of runs, and every team in the playoffs is both a good team and playing hard, so you always have to assume your opponent has a punch left to throw. This isn’t the regular season, where you play a lot of teams that are bad and/or willing to pack it in when they go down double digits.

The Clippers just happen to normally be the team that’s ahead this postseason, because, well, they’re better than the two teams they’ve played so far. So the 10-point first quarter leads that dissipate as a hot shooting start regresses to the mean are probably a little more likely to happen to the Clips.

But in the games they’ve gone down, they’ve benefitted from blown leads too. While they blew a 21-point first-half lead in game 4 against the Mavericks, they also came back from down 12 in the second half to force OT. In games 2 and 3 against the Nuggets, the Clippers were thoroughly outplayed, but they almost stole game 2 by cutting Denver’s 20-point lead to 5 and did steal game 3 when facing a smaller deficit.

In part, this whole saga is a bit of the famous fan complaint that “someone random from the opposing bench always kills US.” Most NBA teams play 5 bench guys on a given night, and given the nature of averages, you’re gonna have a couple guys who aren’t household names scoring above their averages most nights. It doesn’t really afflict any one team more than another, and in the situations where it does, the cause isn’t bad luck–it’s a systemic flaw with the team, like poor depth and/or weak defenders at a certain position.

I don’t have the dataset nor the data analysis skills to prove it, but I suspect that a huge part of the frustration that comes from blowing double-digit leads is universal–Clippers fans just don’t watch the other 29 teams nightly to see how normal it is. Just anecdotally, in Friday’s other game, the Boston Celtics saw a 12-point first quarter lead turn into a 7-point second quarter deficit, and then led 88-78 before a Raptors flurry made the score 89-87. Basketball is a game of runs.

But while conceding runs and blowing leads from time to time is inevitable and unavoidable, there are definitely ways that teams can find themselves more or less likely to have stretches where they struggle. The right combination of personnel decisions and rotation strategies and mitigate the risk of letting up big runs, like Doc Rivers’ choice to keep either Paul George or Kawhi Leonard on the floor with the second unit at all times during the playoffs. As much as LA’s 2nd unit has struggled through 11 playoff games, I have little doubt that Doc’s decision to stagger his stars has helped mitigate those struggles.

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Similarly, the choice (for much of the playoffs) to play 4-bench lineups around one of those stars exacerbated issues. For example, the bench quartet of Reggie Jackson, Lou Williams, JaMychal Green, and Montrezl Harrell have lost their 46 playoff minutes by 10 points despite almost always having one of George or Leonard on the floor. Even more egregious, the four-man unit of Jackson, Williams, Landry Shamet, and Harrell have lost their 10 playoff minutes together by 23 points.

But these lineups don’t play very much. Ten minutes over 11 games is essentially a meaningless sample size–even 46 minutes is hard to take a ton of stock in, though in this case it backs up common sense and the eye test.

The systemic concession of runs comes when the right combination of match-ups occur against high-usage weak lineups. Take, for example, the Lou Williams – Montrezl Harrell pairing. The league’s most iconic bench duo, Williams and Harrell carried the Clippers’ regular-season offense, allowing them to finish in the 2-seed despite extended absences and rest for both of their stars. But in the playoffs, they’re getting picked apart: the pace is slower, they get fewer minutes and touches, the opposing defenses are better and playing harder, and the opposing offenses are better and more precisely targeting them.

In 155 minutes together this post-season, the Clippers have a -11.2 net rating. That’s a substantial number of minutes: on average, nearly one-third of each playoff game has seen those two share the floor, and the Clippers have lost big in those minutes. If you like raw data, the team has lost those 155 minutes by 41 points. The numbers are consistent between LA’s two series, with the two posting a -11.5 net rating in 85 minutes together in this series alone.

So, the Clippers have a Williams/Harrell problem. It makes sense, both for the reasons I outlined above about how their roles and the playoff environment change the game, but also just based on eye test: Lou is struggling with his shot, making just 22% from deep in this playoff run, and Trez is struggling with everything, with the data showing him consistently making a significant negative impact on the team’s offense, defense, and rebounding. But even with that problem being a constant, the Nuggets can do different things to exacerbate it–or fail to take advantage.

For example, one of the reasons the Clippers haven’t been totally forced to adjust is Torrey Craig. A solid but unspectacular defender and non-factor offensively, Craig allows the Clippers to hide Williams defensively. Remember how the Clippers have a -11.5 net rating in Lou/Trez minutes this series? Their net rating is +17 when Torrey Craig is on the floor and -28.2 when he’s off. I think the Clippers need to find more minutes for Lou Williams than Mike Malone will play Craig, but if I were Doc Rivers, I’d make sure that Lou was in the game every second that Torrey is, in addition to other time.

It’s also a matter of who is going to exploit the glaring weakness that is Montrezl Harrell’s defense. When Denver’s backup center, Mason Plumlee, is in the game, the Clippers are fine–in fact, even against lineups featuring both Williams and Harrell, Denver lineups featuring Plumlee have mustered an offensive rating of just 89.6 (to be fair to Mason, most of those minutes include Craig’s presence for the Nuggets).

Nikola Jokic is Denver’s best player and best passer, the focal point of their offense and their best creator. He’s the guy who makes everything happen, and it shows: the Nuggets have a 107.7 ORTG with Jokic on the floor in this series and a 87.7 ORTG with him off of it. To put it bluntly, the Clippers don’t need to worry a lot about their defensive lineups for the 8 or so non-Jokic minutes, because the Nuggets aren’t going to score a lot of points in those minutes.

But when Jokic is on, he’ll shred a lineup that throws a poor (and often lazy) defender at him in Harrell, especially if that lineup features another poor defender for Nikola to pick on with his passing. In 28 minutes this series where Lou and Trez have both been on the floor vs Jokic, the Clippers have had a dreadful DRTG of 114.9, conceding 77 points in those 28 minutes and losing them by 18 points.

That’s an absolutely brutal combination of data, reasoning, and eye test that seems sure to produce runs for the Nuggets. Sure enough, when Harrell entered the game for Zubac with 1:24 to play in the third quarter, the Clippers held the aforementioned 13-point lead, 80-67. Jokic was in the game, and more than that, Mike Malone immediately subbed Jamal Murray and Michael Porter Jr. on as well–he saw an opportunity to exploit a poor defensive lineup and cut into LA’s lead. A 13-point lead became 7 in 84 seconds.

Before this series began, NBA analyst Matt Moore said on the Locked on Nuggets podcast that if Denver was down 8-10 points at the start of the fourth quarter against the Clippers, they’d always have a chance to get back into the game because those minutes are where Montrezl Harrell plays, and the team is poor defensively. But Nikola Jokic has to rest eventually, so the Clippers were fine to start the fourth quarter, and despite a flurry of Denver points the 7-point lead at the end of the 3rd had shrunk to just 6 when Jokic returned to close the game with 8:44 to play.

From there, Jokic got to face 2:11 of Lou/Trez, and the Nuggets scored 9 points in that span to take the lead. Even after Williams exited, Harrell continued to sink the Clippers-on both ends.

Jokic hit an easy jumper over Trez, and then Harrell responded with a truly astounding play where he drove 1-on-4, got blocked instead of kicking out to Paul George and Kawhi Leonard, who were open in each corner, and then didn’t get back on defense, leaving his team playing 4-on-5 and conceding a Murray three.

When Doc Rivers took a timeout and took Harrell out of the game, the Clippers’ 13-point lead had turned into a 6-point deficit in just 7:36, with 18 points of that 19-point swing coming in just 4 minutes and 20 seconds where Harrell and Jokic shared the floor in the second half.

A massive run takes a lot of things. It never falls on the shoulders of one guy–basketball is a 5-on-5 game, and everything is interconnected. Part of a run is mentality: the Nuggets had to have a moment where they decided to dig deep and fight back to avoid being eliminated, and the Clippers had to have a moment where they not only let up slightly but became rattled at the prospect of losing the game. Part of a run is luck, too! The Nuggets are a good offensive team, and they played well in the fourth quarter and generated good looks, but they also shot 7/9 from three in the fourth. That’s pretty lucky–and hard to argue against when you see Jamal Murray banking in a contested three.

We can never know when a run is going to happen because of the variance of shot-making in the NBA, but there are moments where we can predict when runs are more likely to happen, and Harrell/Jokic minutes–especially if Lou Williams is also on the court and Torrey Craig isn’t–are about as likely as it gets in this series. Malone recognized the combination for a potential Denver run and brought in an offensive lineup against Lou and Trez. Sometimes runs are unavoidable, but Doc Rivers can mitigate their likelihood by recognizing the same trends Malone is and only playing Williams and Harrell together against lineups that feature Plumlee (especially if Craig is also on the floor).

On Friday, the Clippers blew a 13-point lead by conceding an 18-point swing in just 4 minutes and 20 seconds of flawed personnel against the wrong Denver lineup. For as maligned and tortured as LAC’s fanbase is, the Clippers didn’t blow last night’s lead because they are chronically unlucky, or because they aren’t mentally tough, or because the franchise is cursed. They blew the lead, and lost out on clinching a spot in the Western Conference Finals for the first time in franchise history, because of a systemic, predictable, and obvious flaw in Doc Rivers’ rotations.

Playoff Clippers: The Anatomy of a Blown Lead
Lucas Hann