Lou Williams has a masterful second half
0 points, 0-4 FG, five assists, four turnovers. That was Lou Williams’ line through the first half of Friday night’s game.
Almost inexplicably, he finished with 26 points, three rebounds, eights assists and four turnovers on 9-16 shooting from the floor and 4-6 from three-point range.
He had no business having such a wonderful night against the Houston Rockets, especially after he was a non-factor in the first half. But he did it anyway, because that’s what Lou Williams does.
To put that into perspective a bit: The Clippers scored 67 total points in the second half. Williams scored roughly 39 percent of those and assisted on (at least) another six points.
That’s absurd.
Perhaps his biggest bucket of the night came with 30 seconds left on the clock — the one that put the Clippers up by one and gave them their first lead since the 7:40 mark of the fourth quarter:
https://twitter.com/LAClippers/status/1198122566671405058
Admittedly, he wasn’t great defensively in the second half. He hasn’t been great defensively all season. But when a player is making that kind of a contribution on offense, you let it go. Especially when only three other players have scored at least eight points in the game.
Even with Paul George and Kawhi Leonard on the roster, Williams is still capable of taking over games now and then. And he has every right to do so.