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Doc Rivers and the Los Angeles Clippers like where they're at right now
Let’s not pretend that Doc Rivers’ genius needed until May to be discovered.
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The guy was a standout player, an obvious coach-in-waiting from the time he retired to the time right before he became the NBA’s Coach of the Year in his first season in Orlando. He expertly managed both a tedious rebuilding process and a championship run while in Boston.
Let’s also not pretend that he didn’t completely drop the rock in his lackluster 22-month history as the lead personnel executive of the Los Angeles Clippers. The Clips were far over the cap when he got there, to be sure, but Rivers whiffed on the usual sort of piecemeal contracts that turn very good teams into great teams. His Clippers were neutered several times during what was a “very good” regular season by the squad’s lack of depth.
Here comes May, though, and the Clippers are running things. Yes, the top-seeded Golden State Warriors won big on Monday and, yes, it took Los Angeles seven games to get past the first round, but no group has played better in this postseason than the Los Angeles Clippers, and that’s even with team MVP Chris Paul limping through a hamstring pull in four of those contests.
Rivers has worked his team to that rank by driving the sort of star-driven, minimalist sort of basketball that former player Mark Jackson failed at pushing in Golden State, and former player Kevin McHale is failing to turn over the top in Houston. When you hand repeated possessions over to high usage and all-world superstars, the game changes in more reliable ways. Ways that wouldn’t survive a four-game in five-night scenario in December.
From there, when you minimize the patterns of the secondary and tertiary options – the main star goes to a shooter in the corner, the secondary star has become adept at finding both curlers with dishes and hurling centers with lob passes – the simple because spectacular. Los Angeles worked with the NBA’s best offense for a healthy portion of the 2014-15 season, and everything appears to be carrying over at the exact right time.
The Clippers are running eight-deep, and even that is pushing it as eighth man Glen Davis is hobbled and only averaging 11.5 minutes per contest. Even Austin Rivers, the oft-maligned and supposed nepotism project that we were all apparently terribly wrong about, would have seen his minutes relegated to the mid-teens (around the same age when Doc Rivers started planning on trading for him) had Paul’s hamstring not popped in Game 7 against the Spurs.
Paul is still averaging 20.7 points and 8.2 assists, but he’s being challenged by an assists per game mark by Blake Griffin at 6.9 a contest. Over 30 percent of Griffin’s possessions end in assists, an astounding figure for a power forward and a pretty swell mark for even a point man. Not to be cast off as a one-note wonder, Griffin is also nearly tossing in 25 points per game and pulling in 13 boards and a block per game. If the NBA had a postseason-only MVP award, it would take one hell of a run from some other player to overcome Griffin’s candidacy.
Of course, one should crow about any accomplishment in the second week of May, and Rivers (the only man with an NBA head coaching championship to his credit left in this playoff bracket) knows this.
The Clippers had to sneak by the San Antonio Spurs by the hair of their chinny-chin-chin in the first round. That Finals-level conference quarterfinal matchup was a byproduct of both the West’s depth and the NBA’s anachronistic divisional seeding system, to be sure, but it also took a hobbled Chris Paul game-winner and an unfortunate referee interruption in the game’s final seconds for the Clippers to pull away at home.
Then again, those same Spurs were taken to task for seven first round games by the Dallas Mavericks last year, and they went on to dish their way to a championship. Neither those Spurs nor these Clippers needed a wake-up call of sorts to prepare them for the (potentially, in one case) three series’ to come, but it certainly didn’t hurt.
Or did hurt, if we’re honest.
Chris Paul will not be at full health until his playoff run ends, whenever it ends. The every-other-day scheduling of these playoffs could take a break if Los Angeles grabs Game 5 on Tuesday against the Rockets, which would help. With Memphis and Golden State giving each other the business, it appears likely that the Clippers could have a full week “off” if Los Angeles takes care of a disappointing Houston team and the Warriors and Grizzlies (ohpleaseohpleaseohplease) run up a seven-game series.
That’ll work wonders for Paul’s hamstring, but these are things that linger, and even a potential Conference finals sweep (which would never happen) and delayed start to the NBA Finals wouldn’t fully heal Paul’s leg.
We’re also talking about the Los Angeles Clippers and the NBA Finals, though. We’re marveling at Austin Rivers shooting nearly 49 percent from long range, Blake Griffin’s fascinating turn as an all-around point power forward, and we’ve yet to bring up J.J. Redick (finally) in full – shooting 42 percent from deep and poking his way to nearly 16 points per game, a needed carryover from his best regular season yet.
It’s a top heavy setup, to be sure, but that top is heavy. It could work, too.
Doc Rivers didn’t put this roster together, and outside of the shocking spring ascension of his son his handiwork didn’t have a hand in anything but the fits and falldowns of one Glen “Big Baby” Davis.
He’s put the Clippers in a position to succeed, though. He’s at his best with a tiny rotation and superstars that can go the distance. Dozens of other NBA-ready head coaches would love to have a go at the same experiment, but Doc earned his placement.
And he’s about to push the Clippers a spot in a place they’ve never been – the Western Conference finals.
(The Clippers!)
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is an editor for Ball Don't Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at KDonhoops@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter! Follow @KDonhoops
