2 – The bench… didn’t suck
Plot twist: the Clippers, for the first time since A Tribe Called Bench (miss you LO!), get a bench that helps — will this last, past this game let alone that series? Let’s discuss when the time comes.
A one-game sample size isn’t enough to dive knee deep into the idea (if you believe it is, then you believe Austin Rivers will outplay C.J. McCollum for the rest of the first round) that the Clippers bench can be good over the course of an entire series. Dating back to the regular season gives that sample more leg room but after three years of incompetence, you understand why one would be hesitant to believe anything’ll stick.
But that’s the future. Tonight, the bench came to play, led by the continuously-impressive Cole Aldrich. He’s no DeAndre Jordan but he gave the bench a similar presence and from there, the rest of the group fell in line with their scoring
Things still aren’t perfect: Paul Pierce still shouldn’t be a rotation player, how Jeff Green is used on offense is anticlimactic and discouraging, and there needs to be more staggering of the stars . But they won Game 1 and didn’t suck and Portland gave no reason to think that maybe it could happen again, and again, and again — and maybe again, and again, and again, but those dates are TBA right now.
I’ll end it off on this note: Austin Rivers outplayed CJ McCollum.
Next: J.J. Redick looks healthy