The Los Angeles Clippers had a good regular season as they finished 51-31 and got the four seed in the loaded Western Conference. That record would be good for the two seed in the East. The Clippers got the five seed Dallas Mavericks in the first round of the playoffs, and they weren't able to get the job done. They lost in six games and were sent home early in the postseason.
After a promising regular season, that is not how the Clippers envisioned their playoff run going. They started the series well with a game one win, but they dropped game two at home. After winning a game in Dallas, it turned to a best of three and the Clippers had home court advantage. Losing game five at home by 30 points was the straw that broke the camel's back, however. Dallas won game six at home to finish the series.
Paul George recently talked about the series on his podcast, Podcast P With Paul George. George thinks that the Clippers tried to play “hero ball” too often and make big plays when in reality they should've been taking a different approach.
“We should’ve played a lot quicker, we should’ve tried to get in transition more, after rebounds we should have tried to get out and run the lanes,” Paul George said on his show. “We should’ve tried to play on the second side, forced the ball to reverse a couple times, where we could attack with our iso players. But I thought we came down, and rightfully so it happens, you try to play hero ball, you try to make the big plays, you try to be the scorer and be dominant but you fail to realize sometimes you have to take what the defense gives you and it might not be your night, or it might be your night later in the game, opposed to try and will it to be your night, and I think we got in trouble with that.”
Paul George and James Harden had tough outings in game six
George and Harden could've been who George was talking about in terms of playing hero ball. Both of them shot a lot of threes in game six while facing elimination, and not a lot of them went in. The two were a combined 2-16 from three (13%) in that game. George was 2-10 and Harden was 0-6. The Clippers ended up losing the game by 13 points, 114-101.
That was a tough way for the Clippers to go out, but there's nothing that they can do about it now besides learn from it. Still, losing in the first round after a good regular season like the one they had is difficult.
The Mavericks won that series and they are now on to the next round taking on the top seed in the West, the Oklahoma City Thunder. Game one of that series took place earlier in the week and the Thunder ended up pulling away for an easy win. It should end up being a good series, though.
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