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The Los Angeles Clippers overcame a 2-0 series deficit, an injury to superstar Kawhi Leonard and a 25-point hole in Game 6 to stun the Utah Jazz in Friday’s close-out, 131-119 victory and clinch their first Conference Finals spot.
As the Clippers improbably prepare to take on the Phoenix Suns, with four wins standing between them and the NBA Finals, let’s look at the top reactions from Game 6 and the larger takeaways from LA’s impressive showing.
Playoff P is for real
Paul George rightfully took a lot of heat for not living up to his max contract when he flopped in last year’s postseason. After leading the Clippers to two straight postseason wins without Leonard against the NBA’s best regular-season team, it’s a lot harder to bash the “Playoff P” nickname moniker.
Maybe everyone was a little too tough on George. The Orlando bubble presented unprecedented circumstances, and plenty of players struggled to adjust. He just happened to take the most criticism for it because of Los Angeles’ championship expectations and blown 3-1 lead against the Denver Nuggets in Round 2.
George was lights-out sans Leonard in Game 5, with a line of 37 points, 16 rebounds and five assists. He had 28, nine and seven in those respective categories to finish off the Jazz.
Terance Mann is the man
With all due respect to Reggie Jackson, who’s stepped up in a big way for LA, he’s at least shown in the past that he can be a consistent double-digit scorer in the NBA. The same can’t be said for unheralded second-year wing Terance Mann.
If the Clippers are meant to go the NBA Finals and possibly even win it, Mann may be the X-factor who swings the entire playoff picture. The Jazz decided to let Mann be the one to beat them on Friday, and he obliged.
It led to some of the best reaction social media could ever offer:
With the visitors trailed 72-50 at halftime, it was actually Mann who played the biggest part in lifting them out of that hole. George stated as much afterwards, as Mann emerged from the locker room on a mission, scoring 20 in the third quarter:
Mann wound up scoring 39 points and hitting seven 3-pointers. We’re talking about a man who averaged seven points during the 2020-21 campaign.
Utah had the Defensive Player of the Year in Rudy Gobert and the third-best defensive rating in the NBA this season. None of it fazed Mann, who went on a hot streak for the ages.
It turns out, Tyronn Lue can coach
Looks like we’re going to get a lot of mileage out of Playoff P’s post-game comments. George credited head coach Tyronn Lue for helping the Clippers stick together amid lots of postseason adversity:
Several prominent media personalities, including two former players, came out to support Lue for his coaching acumen, too:
Without a ton of fanfare whatsoever, Lue has actually been making lots of adjustments on the fly throughout the regular season and playoffs.
Think about this: Leonard missed 20 regular-season games, and George missed 18. It was a constant shuffling of lineups and personnel to see who Lue could count on come playoff time. Even then, there was plenty of uncertainty.
Coaching is often downplayed in the modern NBA, yet Lue just coached circles around Quin Snyder, who’s widely considered among the league’s elite for what he’s done in Utah.
Lue not only adjusted to Leonard going down, but before then, he lost a top rim protector, rebounder and the team’s No. 4 scorer during the regular season in Serge Ibaka to injury. The Clippers already lack ideal size, so seeing Ibaka go down after just two brief appearances in losses to the Dallas Mavericks was a discouraging setback.
But just like he did when his squad trailed the Mavs 2-0 in the first round, Lue didn’t panic, got his players to believe in the adjustments he was making, and executed at the highest level, under intense pressure.
It is indeed time to give Lue his due.
Los Angeles Clippers’ run proves insignificance of regular season
Let’s not forget that Jazz star Donovan Mitchell was gutting through an ankle injury all postseason, and veteran guard Mike Conley was out of action for most of this series with a nagging hamstring issue. That said, Mitchell still played at an extraordinary level, and it still wasn’t enough.
Utah deserves praise for its excellent run to earn the West’s No. 1 seed with a 52-20 record, yet even home-court advantage, injuries to many key stars in the conference and being spotted a 2-0 lead in the second round weren’t enough for the Jazz to realize their biggest dreams.
Meanwhile, the Clippers were a perpetual chemistry experiment, always playing the long game, suffering through fits of bad play and ultimately underachieved to a 47-25 record and the fourth seed.
Guess what? It didn’t matter. LA is still standing, and Utah is licking its wounds, trying to figure out what the heck went wrong.
The simple one-word reason of “money” means the NBA won’t even consider sticking to a 72-game schedule like it did this season, much less shrink it even more from the regular 82-game slate. It’s too bad, because obviously, those contests don’t bear much significance in the end.
Wouldn’t we be better suited to see a shorter regular season and an expanded playoff field, instead of slogging through a lengthier season, getting irked about load management and risking injuries to the sport’s biggest stars when the stakes are much lower?
Just some food for thought. But let’s be serious: These Los Angeles Clippers are for real, and for the first time ever, are in the Conference Finals. That’s worth celebrating, and don’t be surprised if they wind up winning the whole darn thing.