Welcome to the Basketball Hangover. NBA Playoff Basketball is going on!
The Nuggets have come back from a 3-1 deficit. Again.
(PHOTO CREDIT: Douglas P. DeFelice/Getty Images.)
It’s been nearly 24 hours since the final buzzer of Game 7 sounded. I still can’t believe it.
I’ve had Laker fans that hate the Clippers tell me all day: it’s who they’ve always been. They are the Clippers. They Clippered.
The sad part? Even their most loyal of fans seemed to agree. It’s like they knew what was going to happen after the second of three collapses happened (Game 6). I don’t truly believe in curses but the self-fulfilling prophecies are abundant. If you believe it, it just might come true. And well, the Clipper fans knew it. They knew Game 7 was lost before it was even played.
I can’t even go deep into the stats, the X’s and O’s, and the plays. If you watched the games, it looked like the Clippers were going through the motions. I had brought up chemistry with a few people. It seemed like they were just winning with talent alone. They didn’t look like the most cohesive team but they were so darn talented that it felt like they could win the championship with that alone.
Kawhi Leonard needed that vocal leader. He’s a “lead-by-example” kind of guy but he always had somebody else to calm the team down. The Clippers didn’t have that. The Spurs obviously had Tim Duncan, Manu Ginobili, and Tony Parker. In Toronto, they had Kyle Lowry. The Clippers may have had an enforcer in Marcus Morris but he’s not the vocal leader that they needed. Paul George is not that guy and that dude needs a good PR team in the worst way. I don’t have to repeat the comments that he has said (recently AND over the years) because quite frankly, they irritate me. You can Google them yourself.
Doc Rivers may have won a championship with the Celtics in 2008. He may have taken a team that was supposed to be the worst team in Orlando to the brink of the postseason in 2000. But he could’ve done more in 2015 (when they blew a 3-1 lead to Houston) and he could’ve done more on Tuesday night. Or the game before that. Or the game before that. I know some coaches are stubborn but good grief, he left Montrezl Harrell to get eaten up by Nikola Jokic.
The Clips blew a 16-point lead in Game 5.
The Clips blew a 19-point lead in Game 6.
The Clips blew a 12-point lead in Game 7.
My gosh. That feels unprecedented. It’s not that they blew a 3-1 lead but it’s in the way they blew it.
Now this team can still be deadly next year. Sometimes, it takes a few years to get it all together. I’d probably still favor them over most teams. But they’d better work on that chemistry in the offseason.
As for the Denver Nuggets? Man. They’re good. Really good. I thought that may be they needed more time to get it together. Or that they’re one guy away. But Nikola Jokic just feasted on the Clippers. And they couldn’t stop Jamal Murray. He scored 40 points in the clincher. They felt no pressure and they have so much heart for being the first team in history to come back from TWO 3-1 series deficits. Maybe they’re ready.
Or are they?
#1 LOS ANGELES LAKERS vs #3 DENVER NUGGETS
Unlike the Clippers, though, the Lakers can counter with their own bigs with JaVale McGee and Dwight Howard. And let’s make no mistake about it, the Lakers “small ball” consists of massive men like Anthony Davis, Markieff Morris, and even LeBron James. The Lakers defense has peaked in the bubble.
I mean, so has the Nuggets, to be honest. They have so much heart and grit and fight. This won’t be easy for the Lakers. But I also can’t see Denver going to the Finals this year.
It also may be closer than most people think.
PREDICTION: LAKERS IN 7.
And I picked the Celtics in 6 on Twitter. However…
Bullet Passes
Gosh. You CANNOT let the Miami Heat hang around. The team is not Hollywood as Hell like a few years ago but they’re grimy, gritty, and blue collar. Jimmy Butler and company will make TEAMS work.
And they did against the Celtics. Witness Butler’s clutch three-point play against Jayson Tatum. And while we had Marcus Smart‘s block in Game 7 against Toronto, Bam Adebayo matched that with a CLUTCH block on Tatum’s dunk with seconds remaining. All I know is that while I picked Boston to win, you cannot CANNOT let the Heat be close. They will swipe the rug under teams.
I’m seeing all the Greatest Defensive Plays lists all over the place. It’s right to include Bam’s block but where the hell is Marcus Smart’s block?!
It’s presumptuous to say that the Lakers will make the Finals. But a Lakers/Heat Finals is 9 years overdue (we never got the Kobe/LeBron match-up in the Finals). Meanwhile, a Lakers/Celtics match-up seems right in this pandemic.
However, it would be sweet to see a Denver Nuggets team make the NBA Finals. They’ve never been in one. Although they’ve been to the ABA Finals in 1976.
NBA Playoff Scoreboard
Game 1: #3 BOS 114 vs #5 MIA 117 (OT) (MIA leads series, 1-0)
Game 7: #2 LAC 89 vs #3 DEN 104 (DEN wins series, 4-3)
Watch This Play
Give me the Bam block.
Bam Adebayo. That’s the tweet. pic.twitter.com/GTikEXkMSc
— Steve Jones Jr. (@stevejones20) September 16, 2020
We have the Final Four left in the NBA! Everyone please stay safe in the Bubble!
Meanwhile, please listen to me cover the NBA and the WNBA in the Rey-Rey Is Fundamental podcast.
Rey-Rey is on Twitter at @TheNoLookPass.
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