The Prodigal Son

Or

You never step in the same Rivers twice

The Austin Rivers Redemption game. That’s what your children’s children will call this game, squirreled away in their underground cities, huddled around the ruins of the Neo-Staples Center, listening anxiously for sign of their dread foes, the Mole People  (Yes, they’re Lakers fans. This is the apocalypse people). It was the key moment in a Clippers Championship run riddled with key moments, from Paul’s hamstring game winner over the Spurs, Blake Griffins back to back triple doubles, and Jamal Crawford’s 70 point quarter (pending).

Or more likely, the Clippers will not win the Championship, Chris Paul’s hamstring game hangs around but little else. And people bring up Austin Rivers ugly game costing turnover in game 2 (and potentially 5, 6, and 7) as frequently as his big game 3. But for now, there is only the present of this series. All worlds are possible, and the world we have now is about the least likely one you could have picked for this series.

Austin Rivers played absolutely out of his head against the Rockets in game 3.

He did it all. Transition baskets, finishing lay ups in traffic, knocking down 3 pointers, making nifty hesitation dribble drives, Tony Parker-esque floaters, and stirring the pot right in Jason Terry’s grill. It was improbable. It was good. And it was fun to watch. Rivers shot 10 of 13 from the floor and totaled 25 points, including 13 in the 3^rd quarter that put the Rockets down for good.

There was little else of note in this game. The Rockets played bad defence and looked less and less like a team that was even worthy of dark horse Championship talk. Griffin threw the ball away way, way too much in this game. With seven turnovers in this game, this is not a performance that would have beaten the Spurs. They already beat the defending Champs though and didn’t need to be in perfect form against this Rockets team that is suddenly looking pretty terrible.

But really this game was all about Austin Rivers’s performance and there is little else to say. (Sorry JJ Reddick, we expect you to be fantastic even if you rained down hell with 31 points on 11-of-14 shooting, including 5 of 6 from 3-point range).

The Rockets didn’t even manage to keep the game close, which is important. With such a thin rotation the Clippers managed to keep their wounded point guard on the bench for more than half the game, and DJ sat with six minutes to go in the 4^th. This might not seem like a lot, but with a seemingly long finals run ahead of them, this is critical for such a shorthanded Clippers team.

Things I Noticed

• The Staples Center was chanting Austin Rivers. I had a dream where this happened once, but it was the Lakers crowd and they were doing it sarcastically
• Austin Rivers “stirred the pot”, stealing an opposing All Star’s celebration after one good performance is hubris in the extreme and punishable in the eyes of The Basketball Gods, expect bad things for Rivers the Younger in game 4

Mike Conley does his best Willis Reed Impression
or
“FIRST TEAM ALL DEFENSE”

I think very few people would have called this game the way it went down. The Grizzlies seem to find a way to surprise every year. Last year they were missing Marc Gasol for the first chunk of the season so when they ripped off a 21-9 record after his return, the only people surprised when the Grizz took OKC the distance in the playoffs were people that had given up watching them early in the season. If one of those overtimes with the Thunder goes differently, I think the Grizz could have won it all last year – or at least pushed the Spurs a lot more than the Heat did. This year is a bit different. A fair number of people were picking the Grizzlies as their dark horse contender for the first half of the season, but they more or less limped into the playoffs. They took care of Portland well enough, but with the Blazers roster so depleted, it was hard to make much of that.

This game was the Grizz at their best. Mike Conley, playing with a freshly installed plate in his face, a blood red eye, and a face mask, inspired the team to victory. A lot of comparisons have been made between Mike Conley’s performance (Or, excuse me “One Eyed Charlie”) and Willis Reed of the legendary (and dear to me personally) 1970’s championship Knicks Squad. What people seem to forget is that for everything that Reed inspired by coming out to play injured – literally limping out the tunnel – the two baskets he scored to open the game were the only two shots he made in 27 minutes.

God did I just sound like I was diminishing the Willis Reed game? They beat Wilt Chamberlain, Elgin Baylor and Jerry freaking West! He’s the guy in the NBA logo! They actually just call him “The Logo”! That’s basically like beating Johnny Basketball in a game 7. Unreal. As I watched clips of it again just now it made me shiver, so disregard any equivocations above. To be clear, the Willis Reed game is the greatest game ever played by the greatest team ever put together. End of story.

Still though, (despite his inevitably inferior performance to Willis Reed) what Conley did was downright impressive. He hit his first 4 shots to lead all scorers with 22 points in just 27 minutes, shooting a blistering 75% from the floor including 3 for 6 from downtown. Not even a sorry-not-sorry swipe to the face mask from a frisky Draymond Green could slow him down. But for everything Mike did, it was a team effort. Tony Allen aka “The Grindfather” completely shut down Klay “37 points in a quarter” Thompson, who ended up going 6 for 15 and 1 of 6 from deep. The Warriors shot poorly for most of the game, but Curry was still able to get to the rim and keep points in the paint a close contest the entire game. It is delightful to watch Curry outmaneuver 7 footers on his way to the rim. Still Curry shot poorly from deep for the newly minted MVP going 2 of 11.

Zach Randolph also played a vintage game. The guy can barely jump but he is a knockdown shooter and defender in the post. Draymond looked great defending Gasol but had a quiet game offensively. You’d wonder if that is because defending 7 foot Spaniards is exhausting.

It never really felt like the Grizzlies were out of control in this game. There was a stretch where neither team hit a field goal for 2 and a half minutes. 2 and a half minutes! That must be a record drought for Golden State this season. You have to feel that even though the Grizz didn’t expand the lead in that time, it felt like winning. The Warriors are a team that regularly rattles off 12 points in less time than that.

One Eyed Charlie put the game away with a 3 point dagger in fading parts of the 4th, handing the Warriors their first loss at home since early January. 3 months ago! That is incredible. I believe the Knicks went 4-1000000 in that same span.

Thoughts on Game 3
The Warriors will come to play in the Grindhouse, and I expect them to open up an early lead. Whether they keep it and build it or not will largely be up to a rebound performance by Curry and Klay. Their offence devolved into too much isolation when they let the Grizzlies defence frustrate them. They need to move the ball more and keep the offence balanced, part of this will require Draymond to have a better game on O.

The Grizzlies went 1-1 on their home court this season with the Warriors, and their bench plays much, much better during home games. For the Grizzlies to stand a chance Mike Conley is going to have to have a repeat performance – which is asking a lot – and Marc Gasol is going to need to get into a better flow on offence.

I think the Warriors are likely to take this game as they’re the better team and are not likely to stay shell shocked after the game 2 loss. But the Grizz have a lot of players that thrive on being counted out, and the Grindhouse is a tough place to win.

Other Things I Noticed
– Tony Allen yelling “First Team All Defence”  over and over during the mic’d up segments was hilarious. The best sound bite of the year since Stan Van Gundy’s “we build a wall” from earlier in the regular season. Defence wins championships, and seemingly elicits great sound bites.
– Even when Tony Allen gets caught jumping on a pump fake, he manages to use his hand to obscure the vision of the shooter he’s flying by without fouling! That is crazy
– Conley’s special cup. What you think he’s got in there? HGH? Fruitopia?
– Another note on the cup, I do find it interesting how frequently commenters and writers seem to dance around the PED issue with basketball. Surely if players are using liquid nitrogen baths (Lebron) and hypobaric chambers (Pierce) some other stuff is going on behind closed doors.
– Another instance this game where I felt the ref’s called an 8 second violation (to get the ball into the front court) way too early, this time the commentators seemed to notice. Since when is this a point of emphasis?

Well! That was an interesting game, it really looked for a moment there that the Rockets might go 0-2 on their homecourt, which given their recent playoff track record, is perhaps not as shocking as it might have been. Critical to the Rockets win was Chris Paul electing to sit game 2 with the hamstring injury he aggravated during his serious hero ball highlight moments in Game 7 against the Spurs. Hamstring injuries are no joke, but you’d have to think that Paul plays this game if the series had been 0-1 rather than 1-0.

TV analysts and former players are always talking about “being happy with the split” ie stealing home court advantage by winning one game of the opening two. I’ve always wondered how many teams really think like this, unless you’re the Spurs or the recent incarnations of the Miami Heat – can you afford to treat any game like its disposable or easily replaced?  That’s why when Lebron makes a big deal that Game 1 against the Bulls was his “feel out” game, I have to wonder what David Blatt and the rest of the Cleveland coaching staff feel about that.

That being said Paul sitting seemed like the best representation of this mentality, the Clippers were happy to get one game with their star player injured, and at least in this case they have material reasons for not pushing for a two game lead by having Paul play hurt.

And for quite a bit of this game, it seemed like they might even get the second game without Paul again. The Rockets looked terrible in game 1, they clearly felt they could walk into a win without Paul in the game (and I would have agreed with them before seeing Blake Griffin in these playoffs). They started this game much better but Blake came to play and absolutely punished them. After a strong first quarter by the Rockets Blake got position in the post no matter who they threw at him, allowing him to turn lots of 16 footers into 10 footers, which is a shot Blake can straight up hit now. Also, Griffin dunked a lob with about 4 minutes to go in the 1^st quarter that gave me flashbacks to the “Lob City” days of Clippers mythology. Remember when everyone loved the Clippers? That seems like a lifetime ago, but it was like 2 seasons before this one.

Deandre got into foul trouble early, which should be the moment the Rockets build a lead but instead the Rockets continue to betray their analytics focused offence by continuing to feed NBA hand-me-down Josh Smith. He is second (second!) in usage rate for the Rockets. On a team with competent offensive players like Dwight Howard and Trevor Ariza, Josh Smith is getting more touches. Dwight has a predictable set of post moves that aren’t as devastating as they used to be, but he’s bodying up Big Baby Davis in the post, who looks like he might pass out just getting up and down the court some possessions. If the Rockets are going to succeed they need to take advantage of moments like these where Deandre Jordan isn’t defending Dwight.

But oh my god, Blake Griffin in the first half just could not be stopped. He had 26 points on  11/14 shooting, 5 rebounds and  3 assists. The Clips as a squad shot over 70% in the second quarter, which is full on videogame basketball. Griffin was in a state of flow that I’ve never seen him in before, the classic “in the zone” kind of play that looks effortless. Beautiful to watch.

But it vanished in the second half, and here is where you miss Chris Paul. Despite Blake Griffin and the Clips outplaying expectations for a second game in a row, the Rockets kept it relatively tight and crawled back in the third. Deandre came into the game and looked good defending Dwight immediately, Howard seemed extremely hesitant in the post during the stretches Jordan covered him. I was never convinced by the arguments for Deandre’s Defensive Player of the Year candidacy, but moments like this illustrate to me some of the differences between observers and players. It seems like Dwight respected Jordan’s ability to stop him and it limited his action significantly, and players in general seem to pass out of the post rather than go at Deandre more than his blocking numbers seem to warrant.

When the Clips looked ready to flame out in round one and there was a semi-serious chance that Deandre might walk, I really didn’t want the Knicks to offer him the max. After seeing him recently though I’d be inclined to reconsider that some. And I’d prefer a defence first big to an offense first one even if his defence isn’t elite.

Griffin needed more help than he got though, and he never got back in the zone he had in the first half. Harden came alive in the 4^th quarter, shooting and facilitating (and flopping!) like the runner up to the MVP we’ve been waiting for most of the playoffs. I really believe that if there had been no more than a 20 second time out for a half time, the Clips win this game and Blake probably hits 55. Instead he went 2/9 after half time and the Rockets steadily pulled away. They kept it close down the stretch but with about a minute and a half to go Austin Rivers leapt out on a fast break (the lowest percentage fast break in basketball) and he…tripped and turned over the ball.

It was a tremendously ugly and unsurprising way for the Clips to lose. When you build a team with 6 NBA quality players, even in the playoffs some of the guys at the end of your bench are going to get touches in big moments (particularly when one of them is your son I guess) and their inexperience or their ineptitude (or both) is going to cost you a play here and a play there, and in the playoffs that is everything. Of all things, the points that seal the game were 2 made free throws by Dwight Howard, who otherwise was 8-21 on the night. Is this some kind of long con Dwight is running here? You always hear the stories about him hitting 30 free throws in a row in practice, is it pure coincidence that the two that mattered he hit (not to mention nothing but net).

I’m starting to wonder if the Dwight Howard end of the game free throw is the Rockets secret playoff weapon they held out of the regular season like the Tim Duncan 3-pointer, the Rockets are devious enough for me to believe it.

Predictions for game 3?

It’s the Clippers to lose even if they get 60% out of Chris Paul and keep their fouling out of the stratosphere. The Rockets will win if Dwight owns the post in DJ’s absence and Harden strings 4 good quarters together (instead of 1 great one).

If CP3 doesn’t play or plays less than 10 minutes of quality ball, then I’d expect a similar result to game 2. Close, with Clippers leading for stretches, but without enough to carry them through down the stretch.

Other Things I Noticed

• Jet and Hedo had a jump ball. Time warp!
• Also were there a record number of jump balls or what? And it seemed like the Rockets won every one of them
• 64 free throw attempts! 42 makes! That is nuts even for the Rockets. And not very entertaining basketball.
• Shaq tripped and felt at half time, the guys filled two full breaks with references to the fall that everyone saw happen with no game analysis. I did not disapprove.
• The clocks broke again and couldn’t be repaired. Who is the IT guy for NBA arenas? Every playoffs we lose clocks, lighting, or air conditioning. Pretty weird.
• Harden had as many turnovers as made field goals (7). That is not good.
• The broadcasters referring to Deandre’s plus/minus without any context (or explanation) made Deandre Jordan look like an MVP candidate, his plus/minus for the game was +3 and that is not adjusted for lineups. I plan to write a piece breaking down some of the most used (and most misused) analytic stats someday soon, and real plus/minus will be in there.

Bring on Game 3!