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CHICAGO – Names and faces have changed, as have uniforms. But some things remain the same.
These new-looking LA Clippers seem to be honoring their ignominious past and repeating old family habits.
Suffocation. Freezing. Farting in the brain.
Or whatever they’ve been up to in the last two games in which they gave up a combined 35-point lead that has allowed those stubborn Nuggets to carve out a Game 7 in their Western Conference semifinals.
The Lob City version of these Clippers has walked and fallen this trail before. With a 3-1 lead with a chance of landing the franchise’s first ticket to the conference finals in 2015. They melted under the fury of the Rockets and lost in seven games.
Kawhi Leoard insists the ghost of the Clippers’ motley past does not haunt them.
“It just got cold,” he said. Los Angeles Times.
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His fellow All-Star Paul George was defiant, sure of knowing his team is doing well.
SHAKE, MAYBE. BUT NOT SCRAMBLED.
“The group remains united. We are still in the driver’s seat. It is not a panic mode,” he said.
As someone who has invested a lot in emotions on this team, I hope so.
Look, it’s one thing for Blake Griffin and Chris Paul to blow a 3-1 lead, but it’s mind-boggling to imagine a much more talented and experienced conglomerate suffering the same fate.
If Kawhi and PG somehow fail to get out of this series, this collapse would be historic, monumental. Right there with Greg Norman’s collapse in 1996 at the Masters, where the great Australian lost a six-shot lead in the final round.
But wait for the obituary, Kawhi Leonard, a two-time champion with a mission to fulfill in a city where “the other team” has ruled with impunity for decades.
Discarded so many times, Kawhi has always rewritten the narrative. It just does. I can’t explain why and neither can the metrics.
Meanwhile, Clippers coach Doc Rivers told reporters that he will review the film first before making any adjustments.
Those movie sessions must be tense, uncomfortable. But it shouldn’t cloud Rivers’s vision enough that he doesn’t see that Nikola Jokic is the owner of Ivaca Zubac.
I know that Montrezl Harrell has struggled against the Nuggets, averaging just 10.3 points and 2.8 rebounds for each, but as Sixth Man of the Year he has taken some seriousness to get more playing time and the task of defending Jokic.
I also know that Harrell is 44 pounds lighter and five inches shorter than the Serb, but Montrezl is stronger than Zubac and will at least keep The Joker from easily getting into his comfortable spots.
Jokic is going to score, whatever happens. But damn it, make him push himself, get physical, and get tired. She pushes the limits of her stamina, a perceived dent in the two-time All-Star’s stamina.
MORE OF SPIN
And what about Patrick Beverley fouling every three minutes he was on the court and disqualified with 10:16 left in the fourth quarter?
The same question goes to Landy Shamet, who leaked a lonely, lonely point in 20 minutes of action. What happens?
Once deemed impenetrable and tough, the Clippers suddenly look weak as a woman’s tears.
This Wednesday, in the pressure cooker of a Game 7, we are about to find out who they really are.
