Paul George scored a playoff career-high 41 points as the Los Angeles Clippers once again managed to stave off elimination during these 2021 playoffs, beating the Phoenix Suns 116-102 to force a Game 6 in their Western Conference final series on Monday.
Reggie Jackson added 23 points for the Clippers and Marcus Morris scored 22 for them.
As what has become the norm for the Clippers during this post-season, they managed to scratch and claw their way to a pivotal victory when just about everyone had counted them out, except for themselves.
Their Game 5 performance on Monday was a good microcosm of the kind of playoffs they’ve had so far.
L.A. jumped out to an 18-5 lead to set the tone. And while the Clippers only relinquished their lead once in the game, the Suns came close to taking the lead from the Clippers a number of times, but every time it got close, the Clippers counter-punched in a big way to restore their cushion.
The best example of this was in the fourth quarter when Phoenix went on an 8-0 run early in the period to pull within five points, but were then snuffed out by a 20-11 Clippers run to close the game.
Though it may be weird to say, the Clippers have become the scrappy underdog team that just won’t go away — particularly as Kawhi Leonard hasn’t played since Game 4 of the Clippers’ second-round series with the Utah Jazz.
Here’s a few takeaways from Los Angeles’ big Game 5 victory.
Stream select NBA Playoffs matchups, including the NBA Finals. Plus, get the NBA Draft, Stanley Cup Playoffs, Blue Jays & MLB and more.
PG13 victimized Phoenix so bad he should be rated R
George didn’t just score 41 points on Monday.
He scored 41 on an incredibly efficient 15-of-20 shooting while hitting three triples, coming down with 13 rebounds, dropping six dimes, recording three steals and doing it all in an elimination game.
Monday’s performance was the stuff that legends are made of, and it was just the latest and greatest of what has been a very strong post-season for George.
Coming into Monday’s game, George was averaging 26.4 points, 9.5 rebounds and 5.5 assists per game. With his 41-point masterpiece now, he’s entered some elite company as a player who has scored 20 or more points in each of his first 18 playoff games in a single post-season.
Elite company for Paul George.
He deserves his flowers for this playoff run so far pic.twitter.com/xhr2gWSjlH
— SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) June 29, 2021
And looking specifically at George’s performance on Monday, what made it all the more impressive is when he did the brunt of his damage.
He scored 20 points in the third quarter as part of a 30-point second half, merely single-handedly keeping a charing Suns squad at bay in the third period, and then dropping all 10 of his fourth-quarter points during their game-clinching 20-11 run that closed the game.
In short, George destroyed the Suns in Game 5.
No stopping Mr. June
After Leonard went down and has since not returned with an undisclosed knee injury, and while George has rightfully been getting his flowers, he and the Clippers wouldn’t be where they are if not for the monumental contributions from Jackson.
Nicknamed “Mr. June” this post-season because he shares the same name as the legendary hall of fame baseball player Reggie Jackson — whose post-season heroics earned him the nickname “Mr. October” — the Clippers’ Jackson doesn’t quite have the same prestige as the former Oakland A’s and New York Yankees great.
The Clippers are Jackson’s third team in the 10 seasons he’s been an NBA player. Additionally, he only remained with the Clippers after signing for the veteran’s minimum this past off-season.
He’s set to be an unrestricted free agent again this summer, but this go-around he should expect a much larger payday as he’s proven himself to be a deadly gunner for the Clippers during this post-season.
In particular, after Leonard went down, Clippers coach Tyronn Lue assigned more offensive responsibility to Jackson and he’s flourished.
He scored 23 points on 8-for-14 shooting on Monday and entered the contest averaging 22.5 points per game on 49.1 per cent shooting since Leonard’s injury.
A player who can reliably shake his man to create separation on his shot or get to the second level of the defence will always be valuable — particularly in the post-season. These are skills Jackson has always possessed, but he’s been doing it more consistently now and in a more controlled fashion than before, and the Clippers have benefitted from it.
Get the best of our Raptors coverage and exclusives delivered directly to your inbox!
Raptors Newsletter
What adjustment will Williams make to Clippers’ small ball?
Word came before the Game 5 that Clippers centre Ivica Zubac would miss Monday’s game — and maybe more — with a sprained right MCL.
This forced Clippers coach Lue to go to a small-ball lineup that was notably effective against Utah and the results were very good on Monday.
This small lineup was eaten up by Deandre Ayton and Phoenix in the first game of this series, but it worked this time because there was no stopping Morris, who scored 22 points on 9-of-16 shooting and effectively stretched Ayton out enough from the basket to allow easier attacks of the rim for the likes of Jackson and George.
Additionally, because Morris was shooting the ball well, it just opened up a lot more space for both George and Jackson to attack their man one-on-one and get a high-percentage look.
So then, what will Suns coach Monty Williams do to possibly limit what was clearly a winning adjustment by the Clippers in Game 6?
It’s entirely possible that he won’t really need to do much as Morris had only been shooting 29.4 per cent from the floor coming into Game 5 and to bank on back-to-back hot performances from him, if you’re Lue, would probably be overly ambitious.
However, even if Williams won’t need to worry about Morris going off again, he does need to be concerned about the poor play of his star backcourt.
Once again Devin Booker and Chris Paul scored a fair bit — Booker went for 31 and Paul dropped 22 — but the efficiency wasn’t there as the two combined to shoot just 17-of-41 (41.5 per cent) from the field.
With the Clippers forced to go small, you would think the obvious solution would be to just feed Ayton down low or try to find him in the pick-and-roll going to the basket, but he only attempted nine field-goal attempts.
There is some deserving credit that goes to Los Angeles’ defence for having some good ball denial on Ayton throughout the game, but there still should’ve been a more concerted effort from Williams to involve Ayton more on Monday.
If the Clippers have to go small again in Game 6, it’ll be interesting to monitor Ayton’s touches and field-goal attempts.
https://news.google.com/__i/rss/rd/articles/CBMiaWh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LnNwb3J0c25ldC5jYS9uYmEvYXJ0aWNsZS9wYXVsLWdlb3JnZS1rZWVwcy1jbGlwcGVycy1wbGF5b2ZmLWhvcGVzLWFsaXZlLWRvbWluYW50LXBlcmZvcm1hbmNlL9IBcGh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LnNwb3J0c25ldC5jYS9uYmEvYXJ0aWNsZS9wYXVsLWdlb3JnZS1rZWVwcy1jbGlwcGVycy1wbGF5b2ZmLWhvcGVzLWFsaXZlLWRvbWluYW50LXBlcmZvcm1hbmNlL3NuLWFtcC8?oc=5
2021-06-29 05:14:00Z
52781679396706
Tidak ada komentar:
Posting Komentar