The Los Angeles Clippers are going home earlier than anyone anticipated, and now everyone is looking for who to blame, primarily focused on Kawhi Leonard and Paul George.
On the Locked On NBA Podcast, hosts Ben Golliver and David Locke (Locked On Jazz) debate who is more to blame between their two star players in Kawhi Leonard and Paul George.
Ben Golliver: The Clippers reached their peak when Kawhi went to takeover mode and fourth quarters. There were a bunch of fourth quarters where he scored 15-20 points, getting to his spots, looking spry, dunking, leaping high off the ground, and everything else. And that version of Kawhi just did not show up late in Denver series. And I don't know if that's health related, I don't know if it's a focus issue, I don't know if it's motivation. Whatever you want to call it, I’m not sure what you want to attribute that to. But I think a lot of the responsibility for the Clippers falling short of their expectations and not being able to capture the height of their play does fall on Kawhi Leonard’s shoulders.
David Locke: It’s interesting, you're really putting in on Kawhi, and I'm sitting there looking at Paul George's last five playoffs and it is first round exit, first round exit, first round exit, first round exit, second round exit in a dramatic upset.
Golliver: Well, I mean, look, I mean, anytime you're shooting a three pointer off the side of the glass, you're going to bear some responsibility too. But I think for Paul George from day one, he viewed himself as the number-two guy with the Clippers right? It was very much like when he first got to Oklahoma City, and he was deferring to Westbrook. Now that relationship evolves and over the course of the second year, and Paul George steps forward and he winds up getting a little bit more of the blame the second time through when they lose to Portland.
But I think on this one, Kawhi Leonard skates blame a lot because he never says anything in the media. He's like the one guy on the Clippers who isn't yapping right? I mean, Patrick Beverley, Montrezl Harrell, Paul George, they all had incidents where they were kind of talking, whether it was to Damian Lillard, Luka Doncic, Nikola Jokic. I mean, these guys are constantly getting into stuff, and Kawhi never says anything. And I think that winds up creating this kind of myth around Kawhi like he's this completely reliable late-game player. He's just so solid and steady.
But he was not good enough in this series, especially late in the series, and there were problems all throughout the bubble. You go back to their first game against the Lakers. He's afraid to shoot with LeBron James defending him so he passes out to Paul George with a couple seconds left and they get a terrible shot in that game. He doesn't defend Devin Booker properly, he just retreats rather than doubling on Devin Booker in the closing seconds and Devin Booker hits a game winner. He allows a really soft switch on to Luka Doncic so Luka can go one-on-one against Reggie Jackson, their worst defensive player on the court, rather than Kawhi Leonard, who had been lined up with him to start.
There were just a number of situations where he made either brain farts or just flat out mistakes in late game situations. And I think that came home to roost, you know, down the course of this series.
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