Game 5 of the Clippers-Spurs series was a great one, going down to the final minute. But it lasted nearly three hours, ending just before 2 a.m. EDT on the East Coast. This, folks, is a problem. And the NBA needs to solve it. You simply CANNOT have the best basketball of the postseason being played when two-thirds of the country is asleep. What if there was a magic formula that could shave an hour off the game time? Would the NBA even consider looking
DeAndre Jordan has been instrumental for the Los Angeles Clippers all season long – particularly on the defensive end – but his inability to hit free throws against the San Antonio Spurs in the playoffs could be detrimental enough to cost his team the series if he continues to stay on the floor while Gregg Popovich employs the Hack-A-Jordan strategy. [Read more…]
The Los Angeles Clippers looked fantastic at home in Game 1 against the San Antonio Spurs when they easily beat the reigning champions 107-92. The script has completely flipped since, with the Spurs edging the Clippers in overtime in Game 2 to take away homecourt advantage, and then completely and utterly demolishing them in Game 3 at the AT&T Center 100-73. Kawhi Leonard was virtually unstoppable, scoring 32 points on 13-of-18 shooting from the field to go with four rebounds, three steals
In Game 1 of the Western Conference first-round series between the Clippers and defending champion Spurs, San Antonio was overwhelmed by the energy of the home team. Los Angeles, even when making mistakes in defensive rotations, did so with so much speed and commitment that it often didn’t matter. The Clippers, with an assortment power dunks from Blake Griffin and power spikes from DeAndre Jordan, had the capacity crowd at Staples Center in a frenzy all night. The Spurs didn’t have an
Can I have last weekend back? I mean, seriously. The playoff games were duds, almost all of them. And the one game that went to overtime happened so early Saturday afternoon, lunch was not even finished. Watching playoff games should never feel like a chore, but it sort of felt that way the past two days. The second-most compelling thing I saw on video was Blake Griffin posterizing Aron Baynes twice in a row, and technically that did not happen over the
A funny thing happened on the Clippers’ way to continued ignominy. Imagine finishing the season on a 14-1 surge that takes you to the third seed in the brutal Western Conference and finding yourself facing the sixth-seeded booby prize, the defending NBA champion San Antonio Spurs, who are favored in the series opener on your floor. What else is new? As one buzzard said to another, “I’ve been having Clipper luck.” Oh, you say the Clippers won? Fairy tales can come true; they just
How many of the 16 teams in the NBA playoffs have a legitimate shot at the championship? It is a fair question, and it was posed to me this morning on NBC Sports Radio by host Erik Kuselias. Just to give you a preview, I did not answer “Trail Blazers,” “Pelicans” or “Celtics.” But I did give an answer that reflects what an odd situation we have on our hands after the first two days of the NBA playoffs. Clearly, the Los
This is what we have been waiting for since Halloween. The strength of the Western Conference was as good as advertised and has provided a first round of playoffs that should have NBA fans salivating. The best series appears to be the Los Angeles Clippers vs. the San Antonio Spurs, whom you could argue were two of the league’s three best teams coming down the stretch. And approximately two weeks from now, one of those teams will be headed to its offseason,