When everyone else was talking about “the fight“, Chris Paul was amidst the fight of his basketball life.
By the time you read this, the Los Angeles Clippers will have already (surprisingly) won Game 1 of their second round series against the Houston Rockets. Game 2 will be on the horizon and will thus be the focus of both teams, the media and fans. But Chris Paul’s transcendent Game 7 performance against the San Antonio Spurs cannot be simply glossed over.
The key in differentiating good games and great games, and great games and “transcendent” games, is context. Taking a holistic inventory of all factors involved is necessary for the full comprehension of the gravity of a performance. This is why Magic Johnson’s effort in the 1980 NBA Finals is arguably the most impressive in league history. Johnson, a rookie point guard, played center in a closeout game on the road and put up 42 points, 15 rebounds and seven assists in the Finals. It also served as the ignition of one of the greatest careers we’ve ever seen.
Just as Chris Paul’s skeptics have grown in number, his detractors have grown louder in recent years. The man who had frequently been classified as the league’s third best player behind LeBron James and Kevin Durant has played 10 NBA seasons without ever having advanced beyond round two of the playoffs. After last spring’s meltdown in Oklahoma City, referenced in our Pacific Division preview, the critics paired “not clutch” along with “not a winner” on Paul’s basketball CV, despite what the numbers in the recent and extended past suggest.
Sidebar: Paul has also been in the top 10 in win shares (an estimate of the number of wins contributed to a team by a player) seven of the last eight years; leading the NBA in that category in 2008, finishing second in 2015 and finishing in the top 3 five times overall during that span.
Context.
Winning Game 7 against a Spurs team that tossed CP3 from the postseason on two prior occasions was already a tall order. San Antonio had just lifted the last two games in the Staples Center and a loss could literally spell the end of the Clippers core unit of Paul, Blake Griffin and DeAndre Jordan, who will be a free agent this summer. A hysterical new owner, who just dropped $2 BILLION on his new toy team a year ago, sat 10 feet from the baseline. Another postseason underachievement with this team could’ve cemented Paul’s legacy as the next Tracy McGrady.
With all that riding on this game, Chris Paul strained his left hamstring in the first quarter. Devastated, he sat on the Clippers bench with his head in his hands as his eyes welled up with tears before eventually limping despondently back to the locker room. Paul has had his toughness questioned in the past too after battling nagging injuries throughout his career, but he had just completed his first 82-game campaign of his career. With his game being highly predicated upon quickness and elusive changes of direction, Paul found himself embattled in a perfect storm: the worst type of injury in the worst possible game at the worst possible time versus the worst possible opponent.
Context.
A hobbled CP3 was fortunate to return to the contest late in the second quarter, but he clearly wasn’t the same player. Limping badly with every step, Paul moved around like a man set to turn 50, rather than 30, which he turns today. The wily future Hall of Fame coach on the opposing sideline was ready and willing to capitalize on this sudden stroke of serendipity. Always the opportunist, Gregg Popovich ran the four time All-NBA First Team point guard through multiple screens when his team was on offense, while occasionally picking up Paul full court when his troops were on D. All the while, CP was noticeably grabbing his bum hammy, as he futilely attempted to hide his wincing.
On top of this, Paul was then asked to run his team while being guarded mostly by Kawhi Leonard, the Spurs reigning NBA Finals MVP and newly crowned Defensive Player of the Year, against whom Paul was giving up six years, seven inches and 55 pounds.
This was this mission Chris Paul had no choice but to accept. The defending champion San Antonio Spurs boasted three future Hall of Famers, more depth on the bench and were more battled tested than General Custer. According to Tony Parker, their motivation stemmed from naysayers (like yours truly) picking against them because they’d never won back-to-back titles during their 15-year, five-championship run.
Context.
With this backdrop, Paul authored his finest moment as a professional, which brought back memories of Isaiah Thomas in the 1988 Finals. He would finish with 27 points on 9-13 shooting and 5-6 on three’s, while adding six assists, two steals and only one turnover. With a razor thin margin for error, Paul connected on all of his free throws, and his last 26 consecutive throughout the series. He was near automatic at the charity stripe for a team whose center was fouled incessantly for his inability to make free throws.
From barking orders to bestowing words of encouragement upon his teammates, CP3 did everything, including all of the little things, in an effort to will his team to the conference semis. Down five with 5:30 left, Paul would misfire on a mid-range jumper, only to swipe the rebound away from an unsuspecting Tony Parker. It was the Spurs first turnover in 19 minutes and immediately resulted in a 8-2 Clippers run that resuscitated their season.
In a game with 31 lead changes, CP3 tallied 18 second half points (nine in the fourth quarter), but saved his best for when the clock was running out. He banked in a long three-pointer at the end of the third quarter (ON ONE LEG!!!…word to Kevin Harlin) to put the Clips back in front, and with the game tied in the fourth quarter of Game 7, Paul angled in a near impossible shot over Tim Duncan — of all people — with 1.0 second left, a shot that was as symbolic as it was scintillating.
One cannot create a legacy in a single game within a first round series, but you can sure construct one using enough of these performances as building blocks, much like Mike Jordan did with his 63 against the Celtics in Boston Garden and “The Shot” versus the Cavaliers, both first round games.
Contrary to the belief of some, this wasn’t CP’s first epic playoff performance as a banged up underdog, nor what it his first postseason game-winner. But this was Chris Paul embodying everything his supporters have ever proclaimed about him, blended together and poured into one bone-chilling display. The stats, the toughness, the leadership, the clutch play, the psycho competitiveness, all in a game that ESPN’s Bill Simmons referred to as one of the top eight Game 7s in NBA history. And he might have…MIGHT have… officially deaded the Spurs dynasty in the process.
An emotional CP3 was on the brink of tears for a second time on Saturday, only this time it was during the many embraces he received from friends, family and Clippers Nation after the biggest win of his career and possibly the greatest victory in franchise history. Everyone in that building fully comprehended the breadth of what just transpired, and most importantly, what that moment meant for one of the game’s brightest stars.
Regardless of what else happens in the rest of these playoffs, when you understand the context, Chris Paul’s Game 7 versus the Spurs is a game none of us should ever soon forget.