NBA Playoff Chronicles is an irregular celebration of all things National Basketball Association during the 2016 Postseason, courtesy of the wit and whim of the Wildcard. So… expect more Dirk Nowitzki poems and Steven Adams Moustache highlights than you can handle.

The Fall of the Clips

One year it’s that Donald Sterling drama, the next it’s a massive choke and another just plain old injuries. Such is the luck of the Los Angeles Clippers who once again fail to make that hallowed, unprecedented ground of the conference finals – in fact this time they didn’t even get past the first round.

The Clips fell in six to the Portland Trail Blazers, a team who contrastingly have been thriving through adversity all season. Four seasons in a row the Clippers have lost series in which they’ve held leads. They were 2-0 up in this one before losing four in a row. Ouch. Ouch mentally and ouch physically.

That was Austin Rivers, starting for Chris Paul in this one, after he copped Al-Farouq Aminu’s elbow in the first quarter. But Rivers bravely gutsed it out to log numbers of 21 points, eight assists and six rebounds – not nearly enough to save his team but enough to win plenty of admirers for a player who’d been the butt of plenty of jokes, playing for a team his dad coaches and all (not to mention Blake Griffin’s impersonation that time).

The way the Clippers lost last season to the Rockets was a historic collapse. This time… well the writing was on the wall once those injuries struck. As much as this falls back into the Clippers narrative of chokers and all that, there isn’t a team in the NBA except for possibly the Spurs and Warriors that could handle the loss of their two best players at once. Take Damian Lillard and C.J. McCollum out of this one for the Blazers and it’d have been an embarrassing sweep. Imagine the Thunder without Russ and KD, or the Hawks without Millsap and Horford, or hey the Cavaliers should LeBron James go down. Not a pretty prospect, and while Blake Griffin had spent large portions of the season injured, he had returned to play really well those first few playoff games. As for CP3, he carried these dudes all season. There’s no accounting for him breaking his and like that. Alas, such is life…

The wonder now is what happens next. There isn’t a real reason why they should break up a core of Paul (31 years old), Griffin (27) and Jordan (27), but that is the pressure they’re under now that the team has once again failed to live up to expectations. And in American sports the expectation is that you’re either directly competing for a title or you’re rebuilding so that you can in a few years. Being the third/fourth best team in a conference should be commendable but it’s only lobbed the Clips with unfair objectives. It’s no secret that the team is lacking enough player depth behind the elder statesmen of J.J. Reddick and Jamal Crawford (both had great seasons), that is something to work on in the offseason. Some say they ought to trade Blake but why the hell would anyone trade Blake Griffin? Mental. If there is one person most worth keeping an eye on the prospects of after this, it is Doc Rivers. Just saying… he hasn’t quite lived up to the reputation. Especially as GM, where he’s actually been objectively bad.

Meh, it’s only the Clippers.

Toronto Right Now

Once Again, We Slept on the Spurs

At least that’s the way it looks after that game one. Sure they looked magnificent in the first series as they swept the hospitalised Grizzlies, but even after winning 67 games on the regular season they still seemed to be sliding under the radar. Which is exactly what they want, though there was no more escaping the spotlight as they matched up with the OKC Thunder in what looked easily the best second round matchup.

And then LaMarcus Aldridge happened. LMA dropped 38 points on the Thunder, helped ably by Kawhi Leonard’s typical beasting (25/5/5) and some clinical three point shooting. They scored a franchise record 43 points in the first quarter and never really looked flustered from there. Not that they eased off by any means, passing 100 points before the third quarter was out. It was a mauling, it was a massacre.

At one point the Spurs were up by 43 points – the biggest playoff lead in Gregg Popovich’s tenure. Aldridge scored his 38 on 18/23 shooting, including 15/15 when assisted by a teammate and 10/10 on catch and shoot baskets. There was no stopping him, Serge Ibaka and Steven Adams are the team’s best big man defenders and he shot 16/19 when guarded by either of them, continually making them look far from themselves.

And then on the other side, between Leonard and Danny Green, they were able to shut down Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook, who were a combined 11/34.

Sort of disastrous for the Thunder, whose very franchise could rest on something positive from this with Kevin Durant’s free agency coming up. But remember their first series against the Mavs, where they slaughtered them in game one and then went and lost the second. The Thunder can come back here, but it’ll require a significantly better effort. There was some sloppiness, especially in transition where OKC were stunningly outscored in fast break points by 18 to 12 despite being a team that prides themselves on playing fast and against a team that is notoriously careful in their possessions. As well as that, there is some natural regression that can be expected, for sure. Like, the Spurs will not shoot 60% from three. Same goes for the overall field goal percentages where the Spurs were almost 50% better (41.2% vs 60.7%). Oh, and the Spurs had 39 assists to OKC’ 23. That stuff can level out… but can it cover a 32 point deficit. Maybe not. Billy Donovan is gonna have to come up with something, be it some defensive switch or schematic thing but damn it’s hard to think what that might be.

Miami… What’s Up?

Not so long ago the Miami Heat were 2-0 up against the Charlotte Hornet, scoring 238 points and shooting at 58% through those two games. Then suddenly they’re down 3-2, needing to win on the road to salvage their season. A few days later they’re cruising to a big win in game seven to advance to the next round.

What is even happening there?

Well, for one thing they stopped shooting the ball well in those middle games. To be honest the way they played in those first two was always unsustainable, you only had to look as far as Luol Deng and his 11/13 game one shooting form to know that much. They are not a team stacked with shooting beyond Dwyane Wade, Deng and Goran Dragic (maaaybe add Justice Winslow to that) and the Hornets, on the other hand, were built specifically to be able to play three-and-D basketball. Their entire roster is loaded with those dudes. So naturally they were going to hit back and that’s exactly what they did, winning three straight.

The Hornets probably deserve more credit there that the Heat do blame. They made the adjustments, keeping to Heat to significantly worse offensive outputs of 80 points, 85 points and 88 points – compared to 123 and 115 in games 1-2. Kemba Walker lived up to his reputation making late shots. Marvin Williams was rubbish in games 1, 2 and 4 but superb in 3 and 5 (1/22 shooting in the first group, 12/19 in the second).

But maybe more than anything, it was just bad luck that had the Heat 2-3 and not 3-2. They missed their last four field goals in game five to lose 90-88 – that is not the team they usually are and that is not the team they’ll necessarily be next time. Sometimes that’s all it takes in the playoffs.

Such was the case when game six came around. On the road and with their season on the line, the Heat ground out a 97-90 victory. After 22 consecutive 3-point misses – dating back to December – Dwyane Wade drilled two late trebles on his way to 10 4Q points and 23 overall while Luol Deng was back to his game one self (21 points, 9 of 14 shooting) as Kemba Walker’s career playoff high of 37 points was overcome.

Rebounding was a major factor in the Miami re-turnaround, that advantage kept in game seven but Charlotte did not. The Hornets clung on through a poor first quarter but were blown away in the third as the Heat surged into the second round. What a crazy series, back and forth and back again. Goran Dragic had 25 points to lead all scorers. 106-73 was the final there, Kemba Walker (3/16 FG) and Frank ‘The Tank’ Kaminsky (3/15 FG) sure picked the wrong night to cool right off.  

The Devil in a Purple Shirt

But oh no the drama didn’t end there. As Wade was busy popping threes and winning game six in the clutch, he found himself in a bit of mano y mano with a Charlotte heckler wearing… a headband, a purple shirt and a skimpy backpack. Dude must be a character, he sure had plenty of lines to deliver. But Wade wasn’t taking none of this bugger’s jive:

The future Hall of Famer obviously got the last laugh, but Purple Shirt Guy found himself on news broadcasts all over the world as he got his 15 minutes of fame. Aside from the fact that he’s clearly an asshole if he thinks he has the right to start jawing at players like that just because he’s sitting courtside, it was one of the stranger things we’ve seen these playoffs.

Another twist to the story: as discovered by the Charlotte Observer, Purple Shirt Guy is the same bloke that got ejected from a game in January for yelling at Kevin Durant for standing too close to him during the game. During the game. Anyway, here’s what they discovered about him.

A Little Help, Maybe?

The Festus

Splash

The Reel:

Quotables:

Purple Shirt Guy: “Those guys, they don’t like me. The coach (Erik Spoelstra) doesn’t like me, the players get in trouble if they talk to me, Gerald Green he tries his best not to talk to me and every time he does they ream him a new one. So when the Heat come to town, I try to step it up a little bit more.”

Ed Davis: "All of y'all expect us to lose, don't even lie to me."

Draymond Green: “We are a bigger basketball team than just Steph. Steph is a huge, huge part of everything we do. He is a huge part of the character of this team. He is a huge part of everything. But the thing we have always hung our hats on is our depth. One guy going down? Yes, he is the guy; but that means all of us have to pick it up.”

Dwyane Wade: “It’s going to be tougher for this team because we’ve never been here. But you don’t run away from the competition.”

J.J. Reddick: "I don't think it's all some linear progression of a curse or bad luck on our part. Sometimes these things happen. Sometimes they happen to good players and to good people.”

Eric Spoelstra: “It hurts losing at home. But welcome to the playoffs. The playoffs just started now. One team beat somebody on the road. Now it gets real. Now we just have to collect ourselves, as raw as it feels right now. We have 48 hours to regroup and get ready for a heck of a battle in Game 6.”

Jamal Crawford (on Austin Rivers): "I have never cussed in a press conference, but he played his ass off tonight. You look at his face, it looked like he was in a boxing match."

Gregg Popovich: “I think it was one of those [games] we had a great night, and they had one of their bad nights. We’ve been there before. It happens to everybody in the NBA, and perhaps that’s what happened tonight."

Steph Curry (on his game three chances): "To me they're pretty good so I'll do anything I can this week to make that happen."

Kevin Durant: “I’m not telling you”

Dwyane Wade: "I'm not a prophet or anything but I knew we were winning this game."

Dwane Casey: "If you wanna poke that bear you'd better make sure he's dead."

Hero Ballers:

Damian Lillard (POR):

28 PTS (9/21 FG, 4/9 3PT, 6/7 FT), 5 REB, 7 AST – G6 vs LAC

Klay Thompson (GSW):

27 PTS (10/14 FG, 7/11 3PT, 0/1 FT), 3 REB, 1 AST, 1 STL – G5 vs HOU

LaMarcus Aldridge (SAS):

38 PTS (18/23 FG, 1/1 3Pt, 1/1 FT), 6 REB, 1 AST, 2 BLK – G1 vs OKC

Draymond Green (GSW):

23 PTS (6/14 FG, 2/5 3PT, 9/9 FT), 13 REB, 11 AST, 1 STL, 3 BLK – G1 vs POR

DeMar DeRozan (TOR)

30 PTS (10/32 FG, 1/5 3PT, 9/9 FT), 5 REB, 2 AST, 3 STL, 2 BLK – G7 vs IN