You can certainly understand the Los Angeles Clippers feeling frustrated after losing Game 5 of their first-round playoff series against the defending champion San Antonio Spurs. It was their second loss in three games at Staples Center in this postseason, as they squandered the home-court advantage they worked so hard to gain during the regular season and regain in a Game 4 victory in Texas. It put them on the brink of elimination, staring down a do-or-die Game 6 at AT&T Center on Thursday.
They played well, led by as many as 14, and charged back from a seven-point deficit with 3:34 remaining to draw within a single point in the final 30 seconds. And yet, they came up short, thanks in part to Tim Duncan's somehow-still consistent brilliance, some bonkers shotmaking by Boris Diaw, and a too-early tip-in of a Blake Griffin floater by DeAndre Jordan that resulted in an offensive basket intereference call with just under five seconds remaining in the fourth quarter. Jordan's ill-timed putback wiped away what would have been a go-ahead bucket, keeping San Antonio ahead by one point. Any reasonable human person would be bummed out by coming out on the losing end of a game that intense, that well-played and that close.
“I’ll be frustrated all night,” Clippers coach Doc Rivers said after the game, according to Broderick Turner of the Los Angeles Times. “I have no problem with guys being frustrated. They have 48 hours or whatever to get over it and we will.”
But before getting over it, Doc decided to get into it, specifically and thoroughly.
From Kurt Helin of ProBasketballTalk:
“I don’t complain much,” Doc Rivers said, in the quintessential line that tells you complaints are coming. “I thought we got some really tough calls tonight. Some brutal calls. The travel on Blake [Griffin], the goaltend on Matt [Barnes], which wasn’t a goaltend. You think about the playoffs, and they’re single-possession games. Those possessions those were crucial. J.J. [Redick’s] foul that got him [fouled] out, J.J. didn’t touch anyone.
“It’s not why we lost, but those were big plays for us.”
When you revisit the plays in question, Rivers – who was fined $25,000 by the league on Wednesday for his comments – certainly seems to have a point. (That's less true of his "I don't complain much" preface.)
The Clippers' first offensive goaltending call of the game went against Matt Barnes with 5:45 left in the second quarter and L.A. leading by five. Unlike Jordan's closing-seconds transgression, though, it sure seems like the ball was off the rim when the veteran swingman made contact:
The traveling call on Griffin with 5:01 remaining in the third also seemed iffy, given when he released the ball on his drive.
And J.J. Redick probably had legitimate gripes with at least a couple of the six personals he was assessed on Tuesday, as veterans Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili seemed to pick up some whistles due more to guile and simulation than through legitimate contact.
Beyond that, Rivers also mentioned the technical foul handed out to All-Star point guard Chris Paul with 4:48 remaining in the fourth and San Antonio leading by three.
It sure seemed odd watching it — was CP3 slapped with a T for making too crisp and demonstrative a chest pass to the ref after the Spurs bucket? As our Eric Freeman noted, though, Paul — not exactly a shy, retiring type in the "griping to the refs" department — didn't offer much in the way of complaint or disagreement at the time, suggesting he had perhaps piped up in disagreement as he dished the ball.
After the game, Paul would only say, “I thought, if anything, it was a delay of game.” Whatever the case, in a game played at this high a level with this much at stake, it seemed like the sort of moment where an official should just grit his teeth, swallow the whistle, and keep it moving.
Then again, it's worth noting that a rewatch of Game 5 could offer multiple calls that went in L.A.'s favor, too. I didn't exactly go over every second with a fine-toothed comb on Wednesday morning, but the third quarter alone saw Duncan hit the deck after body contact on a drive near the eight-minute mark; Jordan make contact with Kawhi Leonard's follow-through on a 3-point attempt less than a minute later; CP3 perhaps getting away with a technical-worthy swipe at the ball after committing a frustration foul on Leonard with seven minutes left; and Griffin getting Kawhi's arm on a short hook attempt with three minutes remaining in the frame.
A whistle on any one of those plays could have meant an extra point or two for San Antonio, just as the benefit of the doubt later on could have meant an extra point or two for Los Angeles. Because they came earlier in the game, though, we don't tend to pay as much attention to them.
We think of crunch time differently, elevating those who execute during it and excoriating those who fall short. This is why you might've heard at least some grumbling today about Griffin, who was a monster through the first three quarters (28 points on 9-for-16 shooting, nine rebounds, four assists, three steals and a block) but struggled in the fourth (two points, 1-for-9 shooting, five rebounds, three assists, three costly turnovers), whether due to fatigue at having played tons of high-leverage two-way minutes, a hard fall on a late-third-quarter foul by Danny Green, or both. Contested plays and questionable calls late in games seem to matter more than ones that happened earlier because there's less time to make up for or overcome them. (It's even harder when Duncan's standing in front of you in the paint.)
In the end, though, games of this magnitude are almost never about one thing, and I liked the way Andrew Lynch put it:
Certainly "too bad" for the Clippers and their fans, but this is also the nature of competition against elite opposition in the crucible of the playoffs. Every play matters, from the 24 missed "uncontested" field-goals to the 14 turnovers leading to 23 Spurs points to the 16 missed free throws to the blown goaltend to the 50/50 calls that don't go your way. It's can be frustrating, but it's the way things are. Rivers' job now is to get his team ready to mount a repeat performance of Game 4, and leave Gregg Popovich and company trying to work through their frustrations late Thursday.
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