Crowder lob, Ayton jam.
One more twist of the knife that’s been in the gut of Clippers fans for the last decade, as playoff failure after playoff failure have piled up. It was only made worse by the fact that an 87% free throw shooter had just walked up to the line with 8.2 seconds left and missed both shots, leaving the Clipper lead at 1 point and setting up Phoenix’s epic final moment.
Not to pile on Paul George after a moment that I’m sure he’s beating himself up over plenty, but even just splitting those free throws would have meant that Ayton’s miraculous alley-oop sent the game to overtime, while making both would have made the dunk a non-factor that LAC was happy to concede. I know that’s obvious (everyone reading this knows how to add 1 to the team’s score), but it’s so agonizing that it bears repeating.
The Clippers failed on Tuesday night in Phoenix. In a game where they were the worse side, disadvantaged by injuries (missing Kawhi Leonard and Serge Ibaka and dealing with a severly limited Marcus Morris while the Suns were without Chris Paul) and rest (Paul George leads the NBA in playoff minutes played at 610, one hundred and twenty-five ahead of second-place Kevin Durant’s 485, while Marcus Morris, Nicolas Batum, and Reggie Jackson all join him in the top 6 and the Clippers have gone without a two-day break for the entire month of june), the Clippers ground out possession by possession, were good enough and lucky enough at the right times, and were in a position where they absolutely should have been able to steal a game and tie up the series.
But despite their failures–schemes, rotations, execution, and of course missed free throws–the 2021 Clippers season has been a success. Of course, it’s not over yet, and if we’ve learned anything in the last month it’s that you probably shouldn’t count this team out just because they’re in a tricky spot (and man, it sure is nice to be able to say that after the attitude this team had under Doc Rivers last season). After all, the Clippers have come back from down 0-2 twice in this playoffs, first winning in 7 games against the Dallas Mavericks despite outrageous shooting luck for the Mavs, and then exposing the Utah Jazz in 6 games even with Kawhi Leonard missing games 5 and 6. In that time, they came back from a 19-point deficit in game 3 vs Dallas, survived 17 first-half made threes in game 5 vs Utah, and rallied from down 25 in the second half of game 6 vs Utah to win by 12, marking the biggest comeback victory in a closeout game in NBA history. Along the way, they cut a 16-point fourth-quarter deficit in game 5 vs Dallas to 1 before losing, trimmed a 10-point fourth-quarter deficit in game 1 vs Utah to 3 with a shot to tie in the final minute, and came back from 21 down in the second half in game 2 vs Utah to take the lead before falling short.
Even in these two games against Phoenix, the Clippers have shown toughness and resilience. Playing without their best player, just 38 hours after closing out their second-round series against the Jazz while their opponents had six full days off, LA played Phoenix tight the whole game and clawed out of a ten-point fourth-quarter hole to get within 2 in the final minute. Again, in game 2, the Clippers were down 9 in the second half and 6 with under 3 minutes to play before Paul George scored 6 points in the final minute to put the Clippers narrowly ahead in the waning seconds (imagine if we could say 8 points in the final minute en route to a win? ugh). These are truly the never-say-die Clippers. Doing it twice doesn’t mean it’ll happen a third time (last year, the Denver Nuggets came back from consecutive 3-1 holes in the first two rounds, went down 3-1 in the Western Conference Finals… and lost game 5 and were eliminated), but it also doesn’t mean it won’t. I wouldn’t shovel dirt on the Clippers’ coffin yet.
But this post isn’t about charting a path to a potential third Clipper comeback or evaluating how likely one may be. It’s to remind us all that no matter how agonizing game 2 was or game 3 may be, this is a Clippers team whose successes we should be proud of. Obviously, the team’s goal this season is to win the NBA title–as it should be any time that Kawhi Leonard is on your roster (funny thing about the last few games, though…). But after last year’s embarrassing bubble collapse, and with Leonard’s free agency pending this off-season, the Clippers had a more basic minimum threshold to meet: proving that this core was a viable championship contender. Despite being one on paper, it’s hard to argue that they looked the part last season. In order to avoid a hell scenario where Kawhi Leonard walks in free agency and leaves the Clippers in purgatory with no good draft picks until 2027, they’d need to prove to both him and themselves that there was a real reason to believe that they could win a championship during the life of his new contract.
Of course, the easiest way to prove that this core is title-capable would be winning the title this year–with the added benefit of, y’know, winning a championship. But I figured throughout the year that the bare minimum would be making the Western Conference Finals and being competitive enough in the series to believe that some minor tweaks and better luck could have resulted in a trip to the NBA Finals and a chance to win it all.
Frankly, I thought that Kawhi’s injury in game 4 of the second round did enough to give the Clippers license to have that belief, even if they fell short of reaching the conference finals. To win game 5 in Utah without him and then come back from 25 down to close out game 6 at home? It was not only an absolute joy to watch perhaps the two best wins in the history of the franchise, but it was immensely gratifying to see what the rest of the team was capable of when asked to step up. Most of all, the biggest accomplishment was the leadership of Paul George in such a crucial moment–since Leonard went down, George is averaging 31.3 points, 8.8 rebounds, and 5.8 assists per game. This postseason, he’s first in the NBA in minutes played, second in points, fifth in assists, and fourth in rebounds. Granted, those latter marks are a bit inflated by the high raw minutes total, but it illustrates the sheer massive quantity of his production in these playoffs.
And as crushing as it’s been to lose these two games, I truly think that Clippers fans should take some solace. This is the Western Conference Finals, and we’ve just seen two absolutely fantastic games come down to the final seconds between two evenly-matched teams. For all the reasons I’ve covered, this Clippers team is special. And clearly, the Suns team that they’re facing is special too. The Clippers are here, on this stage, exhausted and shorthanded and throwing everything they have at their opponents, competing defensively and clawing out crucial possessions to stay in games late. Most conference finals pit two special teams against each other–it’s hard to get out of two straight playoff series without a team clicking together and believing in their ability to keep winning. One of those special teams always loses. For the Clippers to be that team this year is, for the first time in a long time, not a postseason exit to be embarrassed about. As gutted as we are all to know that a pair of Paul George free throws cost the Clippers a WCF game, we should also appreciate how remarkable it is that the Clippers were on the verge of winning that game with Kawhi Leonard and Serge Ibaka out, Marcus Morris limited, and major fatigue impacting the rest of the roster.
Imagine if Kawhi Leonard hadn’t hurt his knee after an awkward foul in the second round. Would the Clippers be tied 1-1 right now, or even up 2-0? Even if Chris Paul was also playing instead of being sidelined in the NBA’s health and safety protocols, I think the answer is yes. Now, the league isn’t going to stop and feel sorry for the Clippers. Brooklyn was eliminated with Kyrie Irving sidelined and James Harden hobbled. The Lakers lost in the first round after struggling with their health all year, including an injury to Anthony Davis in the playoffs. The Denver Nuggets looked like the best team in the NBA for two weeks after the trade deadline… until Jamal Murray tore his ACL. The Boston Celtics had a wildly disappointing season when Jayson Tatum missed time and struggled to recover fully from COVID and Jaylen Brown required season-ending surgery for a wrist injury. The list goes on–you gotta be good and lucky to win in the NBA.
But whatever happens on Thursday and beyond, the Clippers have proven that they’re good enough, tough enough, and together enough to win a championship. If they fall short, it will be primarily because they weren’t lucky enough. And yes, it takes luck and being tremendously good: the Toronto Raptors of two years ago not only needed a lucky bounce at the horn of game 7 to get out of the second round, but they wouldn’t have had a prayer of making it out of that series or moving on to win the title if Kawhi had been injured, and they probably wouldn’t have won the Finals if Kevin Durant had been fully healthy. So the Clippers are firmly in “try again and hope you get a little luckier” territory for next season. It’s easy to believe that they’re an unnecessarily rough foul from Joe Ingles away from being up 2-0 in the Western Conference Finals.
So make or miss those free throws, win or lose game 3, this Clippers season has been a success. We’ve seen Paul George rebound from a down postseason to restore his superstar label, Reggie Jackson and Nic Batum reclaim their careers and exceed expectations to shocking degrees, and Terance Mann break out as a quality two-way wing who is capable of putting up 39 points in a playoff game. Let’s enjoy the amazing moments this team has given us, the amazing basketball games continuing to unfold in front of us, and the increased possibility that we’ll get to see all of these fantastic players together in Clipper uniforms going forward. Go Clippers.
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