LA Clippers Do What They’ve Been Doing; Get Same Result
In a terrible Game 7, the Clippers didn’t show up to play and got dominated in the second half, losing 104-89.
I could basically copy and paste the postgame piece from Games 5 and 6. The LA Clippers didn’t show up to the game. Nobody could hit a shot, and the team blew a halftime lead again.
Our leading scorer was Montrezl Harrell, with 20. Kawhi Leonard went 6-22 and Paul George went 4-16. Nobody on the Clippers could make a shot. Lou Williams had multiple great looks at the rim that he just missed.
For some reason, Ivica Zubac only played 14 minutes. This led to Nikola Jokic usually being guarded by a Trezz, or a JaMychal Green, or somebody else who’s much shorter than him. It’s a total coincidence, then, that he ended up with 22 rebounds.
Jamal Murray channeled his inner Denzel Washington and was a Man on Fire. 15-26, scoring 40 points. Nobody could stop him, and his absurd running three pointer put the final nail in the coffin in this game.
The Clips scored 33 points in the second half, proving that their 35 point second half in Game 6 wasn’t a fluke. Something’s happening in the locker room at halftime, and it might include sedatives or body snatching.
Speaking to the media after the loss, Doc Rivers had this to say:
"Just disappointed. I thought we had so many opportunities over the last three games to win… Right when they put pressure on us, honestly, I just thought we didn’t come through."
He’s certainly right that we’ve had so many opportunities to win, given that we were up 3-1 and led at halftime in each game.
Rotations never seemed to make sense. We saw too many minutes of Trezz guarding Jokic, or a trio of Landry Shamet, Lou Williams, and Trezz. Those guys are good ballplayers, but they need to be put in a position to maximize their talents.
And that’s really been the story of the entire series – it felt like our guys weren’t put in the position to succeed. And when they were, they couldn’t capitalize often enough. Too often, the strange bench rotations lost leads that the starters couldn’t reclaim.
Kawhi and PG can’t escape the blame for this one. They shot the ball terribly and didn’t make enough of a difference on the defensive side of the ball. But… they each had an incredible game in the past 3, and those were wasted.
Next. LA Clippers Collapse in the Second Half… Again. dark
There will be plenty of time for figuring out what changes need to happen to make next season less of a disappointment than this one. For now, let’s let it out and mourn the loss of the season.