Basketball: Clippers landed Kawhi Leonard as a free agent

Basketball: On the night the Los Angeles Clippers landed Kawhi Leonard as a free agent and traded for Paul George in July 2019, Clippers coach Doc Rivers talked with the team’s president of basketball operations, Lawrence Frank, dozens of times. There was a debate over just how much the Clippers should give up in the trade with the Oklahoma City Thunder for George. The conversation had been ongoing for days, but by the night of July 5th 2020, it was time to decide.

Four future first-round picks and promising young guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander was a lot. But trading for George and signing Leonard would make them instant title contenders. Clippers chairman Steve Ballmer would make the final decision, but he wanted their opinion, too. For Rivers, the choice was simple. If you have a chance to win a championship, you go for it.

Because those chances do not come around very often. In August 2020, the first day of the National Basketball Association (NBA) playoffs was chalk. The No. 1 seeded Milwaukee Bucks started the second day by losing to the Orlando Magic, and the No. 1 seeded Los Angeles Lakers ended the day by losing to the No. 8 seeded Portland Trail Blazers. It is the first time since 2003 in which both No. 1 seeds lost their openers, and in the team’s case, it came down to a lack of depth.

LeBron James scored 23 points, pulled in 17 rebounds, and dished out 15 assists while Anthony Davis poured in 28 points of his own, but the Lakers role players shot 4-of-22 from 3-point range.

They simply can not score enough to win when that happens. Portland’s role players were not great either, but Damian Lillard’s 34 points were enough to lead them to a victory. Now the Trail Blazers will need to only win three games out of six to stun the Western Conference’s No. 1 seed. The Lakers will have to go back to the drawing board if they want to avoid such a humiliation.

What happened was completely and utterly unacceptable. The team were outscored by nine points in JaVale McGee’s 13 minutes on the floor. They lost the game by seven points. That is not a coincidence. The Lakers were outscored during McGee’s minutes in all seven of his appearances in the bubble. In Orlando, the team has now been outscored by 66 points in his 121 minutes on the floor.

They have outscored opponents by 26 points in the minutes they have played without him. This is not rocket science. They are starting every game down several points because they are starting the wrong lineup. The Lakers are exacerbating the problem by sending that same lineup out there at the start of the third quarter. The version of the starting lineup that included Avery Bradley outscored opponents by 12.6 points per 100 possessions during the regular season.

The version with Kentavious Caldwell-Pope was outscored by 1.2 points per 100 possessions.

The McGee-Caldwell-Pope-James-Davis-Danny Green fivesome does not work. At a minimum, McGee needs to be excised from the rotation entirely. Whether that means playing Markieff Morris at center more or hoping Dwight Howard can avoid foul trouble is another matter, but there just is not any evidence to suggest that McGee can contribute to winning in the postseason.

There is a reason McGee was a benchwarmer for the Golden State Warriors. The Caldwell-Pope situation is more complicated. They need to play him, and his numbers, on balance, have been better as a starter. But tinkering with the combinations is critical. Alex Caruso deserves a look as the fifth starter. Kyle Kuzma’s place in the first five should be obvious.

This is not March anymore. These games count. Coach Frank Vogel can not afford to fritter them away by playing the wrong players. The Lakers are better than the Trail Blazers. That much should be obvious. The team just has to use the right lineups to prove it. It is hard to argue with 23 points, 17 rebounds, and 15 assists. Those numbers do not even tell the entire story.

James was great on defense as well. Nearly every decision James made, in a vacuum, was the right one. But they scored 93 points against a defense that has allowed an average of 123 points over its past six outings. Yes, shooting was the primary reason for that, and the Lakers will probably hit more than five of their 32 long balls in Game 2. But role players have bad shooting nights.

It happens. When it does, superstars are supposed to pick up the scoring burden themselves. For all of the great things James did in Game 1, he did not do what he did in the playoffs time and time again: score.

Despite drawing incredible matchups in Carmelo Anthony and Gary Trent, James was determined to play total team basketball.

What the Lakers need is something closer to the James of 2018. In Game 1 of that postseason run against the Indiana Pacers, James scored 24 points en route to a triple-double, but the Cavaliers lost. James came out and scored 46 in Game 2, a win, and wound up averaging 34.6 points per game through the rest of the Eastern Conference playoffs. If no other Laker is going to create shots, James is going to have to do something like that for the team to win the title.

It is cliche, but James has to be more like Michael Jordan and less like Magic Johnson, his roster demands it. It might have happened by accident. Wenyen Gabriel started at power forward for the Trail Blazers but got into early foul trouble. So the Trail Blazers did something that few 2020 teams would ever consider: they played their two centers together.

It was a look they experimented with a bit prior to the playoffs, but without much success. That was for good reason. Neither Hassan Whiteside nor Jusuf Nurkic are particularly strong shooters, nor can they defend the perimeter all that well. But they survived those minutes in Game 1 by crashing the boards and protecting the rim. The Lakers missed the open shots the Trail Blazers created with their two-big lineups, and while it may not be sustainable, Portland might not have much of a choice but to go back to those groups until Zach Collins is healthy enough to return.

This is a thin team.

Their lineup options are limited. The entire enterprise falls apart if the Lakers start making shots. But until they do, the Trail Blazers might have found a way to shift some minutes away from the worst players on their bench and towards better ones. Thanks to the team’s struggles in the bubble, there is no clear-cut favorite to win the NBA championship entering the playoffs, for a change.

Some sportsbooks have the Bucks as the team to beat, while other bookmakers still have the Lakers pegged as the favorites, and in Las Vegas, the Clippers can be found atop the odds to win the championship. It is the first time there has not been a clear-cut title favorite heading into the playoffs since 2015, the beginning of the Warriors’ run. The Warriors were the overwhelming favorites in each of the past five postseasons, with odds never longer than +175.

This season, though, the favorite’s odds – whether it be the Lakers, Bucks, or Clippers – are about +250 on average. SuperBook at Westgate Las Vegas bumped the team up to 3-1 to win the title, which is the highest SuperBook has been in a while, and it made the Clippers the favorites at 11-4. At one point, before the NBA suspended play because of the covid pandemic, they looked to be distinguishing themselves from the Bucks and Clippers.

But Lakers was unimpressive since the restart, going 3-5 in Florida.

Some of the Lakers’ performance can be chalked up to its situation. The team was locked in to the No. 1 seed in the Western Conference early in the restart, Vogel experimented with different lineups in the games that had less meaning. However, they finished the seeding games with the second-worst net efficiency rating. The experimental lineups did affect their rating and perception, because people are enthralled by Portland in this series.

SuperBook had taken 6 bets on the Trail Blazers for every 1 they had received on the Lakers in the teams’ first-round playoff series, including a $5,000 bet and a $1,000 bet on Portland at 4-1 odds. The Trail Blazers also were a popular bet to upset the team at sportsbook PointsBet, which reported taking “sharp action” causing Portland’s odds in the first-round series to improve from +450 to +375. Their title odds fell behind the Bucks and the Clippers at PointsBet.

Lakers’ performance in the bubble, in addition to its tough path in the Western Conference, caused its odds to lengthen. The team still has attracted more bets and more money to win than any other team at multiple sportsbooks, and Caesars Sportsbook has them listed as the favorites at 2-1, due to heavy early betting support. But Caesars Sportsbook has acknowledged that they probably would be underdogs to the Bucks and Clippers in potential postseason matchups.

While the Lakers has taken a step back in oddsmakers’ eyes, the Clippers has ascended.

The Clippers would be favored over either the Bucks or Lakers in a playoff series. As the Clippers progresses and gets a healthy team, it has – on both sides of the court, offense and defense – the most complete team, so from a power-rated standpoint, bookmakers have it rated the highest. The Clippers are -650 favorites over the Dallas Mavericks in its first-round series, which tip offs 2020.

Luka Doncic made history in his playoff with 42 points, 9 assists, and 7 rebounds to set the NBA record for most points in a postseason debut. But Doncic could only sum up his Game 1 performance against the Clippers with one word, “Terrible.” Doncic turned the ball over 11 times, helping the Clippers take a 1-0 lead in this Western Conference first-round series with a 118-110 victory.

Doncic should never had 11 turnovers. That was 11 more possessions. Doncic thought a lot of this game, he got to do way better than that. Doncic never had 11 turnovers that much, he just wanted to win. The Mavericks fought till the end, the team tried, and Doncic was really proud. In addition to setting the NBA record for most points in a playoff debut, Doncic joined the Mavericks when it came to his big postseason debut.

Only Johnson and James had recorded 40-5-5 in a playoff game at a younger age than Doncic.

It was a nightmarish start, though, for the Mavericks. The Mavericks not only trailed 18-2 in the first 3½ minutes but also had to hold their breath when Doncic hobbled off the court early. Doncic returned after a brief exit to have his left ankle re-taped. But the Mavericks stormed back, going on a 48-18 run at one point. Doncic gave the Clippers defense problems, even with Kristaps Porzingis ejected early in the third after picking up his second technical foul.

Doncic scored 23 of his points and made 8 of 13 shots in the second half. Doncic scored or assisted on 66 of the 82 points the Mavericks scored while he was on the floor. But it was not enough to overcome Leonard and George. Leonard and George scored 19 of their combined 56 points in the fourth quarter for the Clippers. Doncic was great, poised, and trusted on the Mavericks.

Doncic could get to his spots, find his teammates, and get them easy baskets. Doncic made tough baskets well and was a great player. George was very impressed by Doncic, George said Doncic was the future. Despite having to deal with the likes of Leonard, George, Patrick Beverley, and Marcus Morris, Doncic made 13 of 21 shots and buried 14 of 15 from the line.

Doncic was a fighter, always going to battle, and would never get discouraged.

Doncic had a very positive attitude on the floor with his teammates. Doncic had been in so many games in his young career that he had seen everything. Doncic’s usage rate was so high that he was going to have a few more turnovers than most players. The Mavericks put a lot on Doncic. Doncic was amazing. Rivers thought the team guarded Doncic pretty well, forced him into a lot of tough shots and 11 turnovers.

What the Clippers did poorly showed Doncic’s greatness. Every time the Clippers made a mistake on the weak side, Doncic made a shot. After months of planning, and two weeks of seeding games inside the NBA’s Disney World bubble, it all came down to the Trail Blazers’ matchup with the Brooklyn Nets. And after an incredible back-and-forth game, the Trail Blazers clinched a spot in the play-in series with a 134-133 win.

The Trail Blazers will now meet the Memphis Grizzlies. The Grizzlies have to beat the Trail Blazers twice to advance to the first round to take on the Lakers. The situation was pretty simple. Win, and the Trail Blazers advanced to the play-in, lose, and the Phoenix Suns would be in. Lillard, after everything he has done in the bubble, was not letting the latter happen.

Lillard finished with 42 points and 12 assists for his fourth 40-point in the seeding games.

It was another incredible performance by Lillard, but Caris LeVert nearly broke the Trail Blazers’ hearts. LeVert was stellar in his own right, going for 37 points, six rebounds and nine assists. But LeVert’s potential game-winner clanged off the back of the rim, saving the Trail Blazers and ending the Suns’ season. Four teams fighting for two spots in the Western Conference were all in action.

Early on, the Suns beat the Mavericks to finish 8-0 in the bubble, but the Suns still needed help. The Suns did not get any from the Bucks, as the Grizzlies cruised past a Giannis Antetokounmpo-less squad to clinch a spot in the play-in series. With wins by the Suns and the Grizzlies, the San Antonio Spurs were eliminated before it could even take the court, ending their remarkable 22-year playoff streak.

It was win or go home for the Trail Blazers, and the team got the job done. Barely, but the Trail Blazers got it done. Even more important than just making the play-in, the Trail Blazers jumped past the Grizzlies for the No. 8 seed in the process. That is huge, because it means the Trail Blazers have to win just once to clinch the playoff berth, while the Grizzlies will now have to beat them twice in a row.

The Trail Blazers have not announced the Kia NBA Player of the Seeding Games yet, but there is no question it is going to be Lillard.

Lillard was an absolute force of nature, pretty much willing the Trail Blazers into the play-in by himself. The Nets were intent on getting the ball out of Lillard’s hands, trapping him early in the first quarter when he came off pick-and-rolls. Going so far as to double-team him at midcourt by the fourth quarter, and it just did not matter. There were certainly stretches where Lillard went quiet, but when he turned it on there was nothing the Nets could do.

Lillard finished with 42 points and 12 assists, 13-for-22 from the field and 8-for-14 from 3-point land, which is an incredible game in any situation.