by Paul Teetor
Now this was more like it.
After two thrillers in Denver – an overtime loss in Game One and a 3-point win in Game two that came down to the final play – the LA Clippers destroyed the Denver Nuggets by a score of 117-83 Thursday night in the first playoff game ever played in the Intuit Dome.
It was everything Clippers owner Steve Ballmer envisioned when he shelled out a cool $2 billion for a state of the art basketball stadium in Inglewood: a pair of superstars in Kawhi Leonard and James Harden dominating the action on the perimeter, starting center Ivica Zubac patrolling the post area down low, and a deep bench thanks to Ballmer’s willingness to spend whatever it takes to acquire good-but-not-great role players like Norman Powell and Nicholas Batum.
And Denver cooperated by showing little fight or determination. Denver management had fired Coach Mike Malone a week before the playoffs started, a rare occurrence in the NBA that usually signals the team is ready to pack it in for the season and start over next season.
Even superstar center Nicola Jokic, one of the three best players in the world, a guy who led the Nuggets to the NBA title just two seasons ago, couldn’t stop his team’s slide into ennui in front of an energized, towel-waving sold-out crowd thrilled just to be there at the Intuit Dome instead of at the Crypt, where the Clippers were second-class tenants of the Lakers for the last 20 years.
“It was cracking. It was loud. It was just how we expected it to be,” Harden said. “You know what? That’s one of the reasons why we jumped out to a huge lead. I mean they got behind us and we just rode that wave.”
After the first two games were decided by a combined total of five points, this was a stunning result. The blowout gave the Clippers a 2-1 edge in the series going into Game 4 on Saturday afternoon, again at the Intuit Dome.
It was the kind of performance Coach Tyrone Lue was looking for from his veteran-laden team.
“This is what I was talking about. The guys played better,” Lue said.
Lue then gave an assist to the fans, calling their energy unbelievable. “Our fans came out, they showed up and showed out.”
But it wasn’t just the fans who played a big role in the Clippers’ dominating victory over the Nuggets. Powell, who struggled to score in Games 1 and 2, came away with 20 points on 7-of-12 shooting, including 3-of-8 from 3-point range.
“Norm was huge for us tonight in scoring the basketball but also making the right play in the pick-and-roll,” Lue said.
Powell said the turnaround was a matter of believing in his abilities.
“My confidence never goes anywhere,” Powell, a former UCLA star, said. “It’s about being steady, trusting the work and I know it’s always going to show the amount of time I’ve put into this game on the court, off the court, mentally, physically that’s what I do. It’s all mental.”
Whether it was the familiar surroundings or the fans who cheered non-stop, something energized the Clippers, who led by 20 points in the second quarter and by as much as 25 before the night was over behind a balanced attack.
In addition to Powell, Kawhi had 21 points, 11 rebounds and six assists, while Harden scored all of his 20 points in the first half to go with nine assists and six rebounds.
Zubac added 19 points on 8-of-12 shooting and grabbed nine rebounds, while Nicolas Batum added 12 points and Derrick Jones Jr. scored 10 as Ballmer jumped and shouted and clapped his hands and pumped his fists from a seat near his team’s bench.
It was a win in a pivotal game three. NBA history shows that when two teams are tied 1-1 in a best-of-seven series, the winner of game three goes on to win the series 74 percent of the time.
So everything was going the Clippers way when they started game four Saturday afternoon.
Naturally, they quickly fell behind by 22 points, then spent the second half trying to catch up. They were making slow but steady progress as the game careened to a conclusion, and the score was tied at 107-107 with six seconds left and the Nuggets with the ball for a last chance shot to win it before the game went to overtime.
Zubac and Kawhi did a great job of forcing Jokic to take an off-balance, 20-foot shot that looked like it had no chance of going in the hoop. But Nuggets power forward Aaron Gordon, could see that it had no chance and reacted smartly. Instead of waiting for a rebound, he leaped up, caught the errant shot, and in one motion stuffed it into the basket and ran off the court celebrating the apparent victory.
But it was so close to the buzzer that the refs had to review the play on slo-mo replay before ruling that his hand left the ball a split-second before time expired.
And just like that the Clippers stirring, inspirational comeback fell flat, the crowd was deflated, and the Clipper players trudged off the floor in disbelief while the Nuggets players danced up and down in a bizarre mixture of relief and exhilaration.
If they had lost the game it would have been an epic collapse. Instead, it was an instant-classic moment, the first sure-to-be-remembered moment if the Clippers lose this series that is now tied 2-2 with game five Tuesday night back in Denver.
Lakers in a Deep Hole
At least the Clippers are tied 2-2 heading into game 5 with a solid chance of advancing to the second round of the playoffs. The Lakers, despite super-human efforts by LeBron James in each of the first four games, are now down 3-1 after Sunday’s heart-breaking 116-113 loss to a bigger, deeper and stronger Minnesota Timberwolves team.
All series long the Lakers have been getting killed on the boards, as they are playing without a real center. Now that weakness has become so pronounced that they have virtually no chance to win the series as they return to LA for a do-or-die game five.
Each loss has been a different story, with the same end result. Luka Doncic was fantastic in games one, two and four, while LeBron has started each game like he was shot out of a cannon. But at age 40 he can’t keep going at that same level of intensity and has faded late in every game – even game three, when he scored 38 points. But Luka – suffering from a bug or virus or something nasty — was unable to produce his usual elite game in game three and dragged the Lakers down in another close loss.
Their third “star,” Austin Reaves, has been physically overmatched the entire series. Ideally, he would be a great sixth man – first player off the bench, a real spark plug – but on this team he has been shoe horned into the “third star” role because there is no one else to fill it. While it works in the regular season against most teams it definitely isn’t working in the playoffs.
Finally, coach JJ Redick made a serious error in game four by keeping all five starters in the game for the entire second half, something that hasn’t been done for more than 25 years. It was inexplicable, and it led to LeBron and his four ironman teammates – Luka, Dorian Finney Smith, Austin Reaves and Rui Hachimura — being gassed in the crucial last minutes of the game. You simply don’t do that to a 40-year-old superstar – or any other player giving maximum effort. They need a rest, even if only for a minute or three to catch their breath and clear their brain fog.
Game five is Wednesday night at the Crypt, and it may very well mark the ignominious end of the Lakers season that held so much promise just two weeks ago.
That’s when the blame game will start.
And it’s going to get ugly, with plenty of blame to go around.
Contact: teetor.paul@gmail.com
