Three takeaways from the LA Clippers’ first-round loss to Golden State
The LA Clippers put forth an incredible effort in their series against the Golden State Warriors, but ultimately fell to the defending champions in six games.
One of the most unpredictable seasons in LA Clippers franchise history has finally come to an end — and it’s one we won’t soon forget.
No one really knew what to expect this time around. We all knew the Clippers were talented, and we all knew that injuries got the best of them last season, but with a new team and an even-more-fortified Western Conference, projections were all over the place for this squad.
One thing is for sure though, which is that hardly anyone outside of the organization expected the Clippers to make the playoffs this year.
On the contrary, just about everybody in and around the team knew just how possible it was.
The LA Clippers don’t have a star. Rather, they have stars, who each excel at an area of the game more so than the next guy. They played as a team all year long, winning 48 games along the way in one of the most stacked Western Conferences that we’ve ever seen. And despite the loss to Golden State, the two-time defending champions and likely three-peat candidates, the Clippers don’t have a thing to be ashamed of. They gave their all, and it’d be foolish to suggest they didn’t give the Warriors a scare.
It was a hard-fought series on both sides. The Clippers made the Warriors work hard and regret easing off. They made them change their starting rotation after a dominant win at Oracle Arena. They made one of the most dominant five-man units in NBA history, the Hamptons Five (a.k.a. the Death Lineup), a net-neutral.
They did a lot of things that they “weren’t supposed to do”, and gained league-wide respect in the process. Some of the greatest players in league history, including Dwyane Wade, Kevin Durant and LeBron James had endless praise for the scrappy Clippers.
All things considered, the outcome of this series really didn’t matter. It would have been great to see the Clippers pull off an upset, of course, but the fact that they got here is enough of an achievement to ensure that this team will live on in the memories of fans for a long time coming.
There were some big things that stuck out to me in this series, and I’ll be diving into those on the next few slides.