The Los Angeles Clippers may be the lower seed in their best-of-seven quarterfinals series against the Phoenix Suns, but Game 1 certainly didn't play out like it as Ty Lue and company pulled out a down-to-the-wire 115-110 win. With this triumph, the Clips have gone up 1-0 and, in turn, have stolen homecourt advantage away from the fourth-seeded Suns.

Following the game, ESPN's sports analyst Stephen A. Smith went on to make a complementary comment about Lue's expertise with Los Angeles, going as far as to label him as being arguably the best head coach in the entire association.

“There's no debating that Ty Lue might be the best coach in all of basketball,” Smith said.

Since taking over for the Clippers back in 2020, the ball club has gone on to accumulate an overall record of 133-103. Despite dealing with major injuries to key players such as Kawhi Leonard and Paul George throughout, Ty Lue has never seen his season win record with Los Angeles dip below 42.

Just this past season, despite being without George and Leonard for 26 games a piece, the club still managed to reach the postseason with a record of 44-38 and clinched the fifth seed in the Western Conference standings.

Against the top-heavy Suns, the Clippers saw five of their nine active players on the night score in double-figures, with star Kawhi Leonard leading the bunch with 38. Comparatively, Phoenix only had four players register such numbers, with their bench combining for a startlingly low 10 points on just 25% shooting from the field.

To Stephen A. Smith, this performance was directly correlated with Ty Lue's superb coaching abilities.