It’s no surprise the LA Clippers and Dallas Mavericks have played to a stalemate through four games of their first-round NBA playoff series. It’s just surprising how it’s happened: The Clippers stole Games 1 and 4 without Kawhi Leonard while Dallas bested LA twice with him on the court.
To assess where the series is at the honorary halfway mark, The Athletic’s Mavericks writer Tim Cato and Clippers writer Law Murray analyze what’s happened so far and what’s still to come.
Tim Cato: Law, this isn’t how we expected this series to go. The Leonard melodrama, which sadly continues as he’s out indefinitely with right knee inflammation, has affected this series in the exact opposite way than expected.
After Game 2, I believed Leonard was rounding into form and the Mavericks were too. I also believed this would be a long series of incredibly high-level basketball between two of the league’s best six teams. Then, once Game 3 was finished, I thought Dallas would march to a decisive, if not easy, series win in six games, if not five. Now, I have no idea. I have thoughts, sure, but how have you processed this series’ emotions on a game-to-game basis?
Law Murray: I mean, shoot, the Mavericks were coming back from 31 points down, and I’m talking to you about Kyrie Irving catching fire like NBA Jam and how Luka Dončić has Ken tendencies from Street Fighter II. I’m about as calm as Gordon Hayward at a gender reveal.
Cato: Seriously, that argument we had about whether Irving’s and-1 jumper that preceded two made 3s counted toward “On fire!” or whether he was still “Heating up!” nearly required an intervention from human resources.
Murray: Sure, this series has been a quarter-to-quarter roller coaster, but this is what we came to see. This is what happens when history is involved, with real disdain at least from a competitive standpoint, although there is mutual respect and disrespect. The emotions have been high.
But I’m a Capricorn, and I’ve been told I’m not emotional, so I’m just vibing. I haven’t even reached for the popcorn yet, although I’m sure that will be different this week.
Cato: What’s up with the Clippers’ offense? Is there actually something to Leonard’s absence making them better? Is it possible that, as Irving said after Game 4, the players have more “liberation” in their hierarchy and roles? Or is the simpler explanation just that the Clippers shot 50 and then 62 percent from 3 in their two wins?
Murray: The last six games the Clippers have played with their full rotation (excluding Leonard) have been Clippers wins with some extreme game-flow swings. In all six, including Games 1 and 4 of this series, the Clippers have either led by an extraordinary amount or come back from significant deficits against quality opponents (down 17 against Denver, trailing by 26 to Cleveland).
Irving made a fantastic point about the Clippers playing freely. Leonard is both a ceiling-raiser and a floor-raiser. When Leonard is feeling decent, it gives the Clippers a turnover-averse midrange and post threat to play through, a player who is mechanically efficient from several levels on the floor offensively. Leonard’s presence also takes pressure off Paul George and James Harden, while the role players kind of just settle into their assorted roles.
Respectfully, Leonard’s cameo in this series brought out the worst in too many players. Leonard was anything but efficient or careful with the basketball, and he went from missing every 3 he took in his return to failing to even attempt one in Dallas in Game 3. George disappeared in a cloud of fouls, and when he is battling the officiating, he doesn’t always recover on the offensive end.
But when Leonard is not there, George can’t defer. Neither can Harden, who is not shy to remind the traveling beat that he can still get his. The Clippers role players all have specific areas of talent that allow them to elevate their games. Terance Mann, Ivica Zubac, Norman Powell and Russell Westbrook are not afraid of the moment and have all had high-scoring games in Clippers colors within the last 13 months.
For as well as the Clippers have shot the ball, they have shown in the two wins this series that they can’t be good offensively for all four quarters. In Game 1, the interior offense really struggled outside of Zubac. And in Game 4, the Clippers had a whole heart attack of turnovers before having to snatch victory back from the jaws of defeat.
It would be ideal for Leonard to play. But it is more ideal for the Clippers to have as many players as possible playing well with the roles they have been locked into for several weeks now.
Cato: I find it interesting that Dallas’ defensive baseline stayed in place for Game 4. The team allowed 18 shots at the rim and the Clippers converted only half of them, which means Dallas remains the postseason’s best team at protecting the rim (50.5 percent). Dallas also didn’t concede that many 3s, just 29 apiece in Games 3 and 4. But the Clippers hit those shots in the latter contest, and they adjusted to the midrange. That was intentional; you documented during Saturday’s practice Harden working on that exact floater that killed Dallas on Sunday.
There were some defensive breakdowns and questionable schematic choices in the fourth quarter of Game 4, but the Mavericks’ offense is why this series is tied.
Murray: We all were talking about Dallas’ defense being No. 1 in the NBA over the last quarter of the season. But in that same time span, Dallas was about league average offensively.
I felt like the Clippers had another level to get to offensively after Game 1. Do you feel the same way about Dallas after Game 4?
Cato: I do. Dončić hurt his knee in Game 3 and may be slightly sick, too, but I’ve seen him rise in postseason situations too many times to think this is all Dallas will get from him. You’ve seen it too. It was in those first two series against the Clippers where Dončić’s postseason mystique began.
Dončić hasn’t been that player thus far. He’s shooting 38.6 percent from the field and 26.5 percent on 3s. In Game 3, he had the worst-ever shooting performance in the postseason even though Dallas managed to win. He knows he needs to be better, acknowledging it after Game 4, saying, “I feel like I’m letting (Irving) down.”
I think Dončić’s indecisiveness has affected the entire team’s offense. It’s easier to guard him in drop coverage if Dončić hasn’t shown any ability to torch that scheme by stepping into 3s, and it’s easier to switch Zubac onto him in that same scenario too. Dončić’s slow, methodical drives are the type that the Clippers hold up against best, and the defenders deserve credit for how much they’ve sat on his tendencies. The Clippers have bit on only a handful of Dončić’s pump-fakes and largely taken away the lob pass.
But Dončić has let them off the hook, too, and not just with his errant 3-pointer. He’s taken too long to initiate actions and hasn’t started games forcefully. He doesn’t have the same burst as he did the first time the Clippers saw him, might have even less of it after this knee problem. But he can power his way closer to the rim, or use his size in the post.
When Dallas made its deadline acquisitions, it stamped its identity as a team that defends and relies on the shotmaking of its brilliant superstar duo. But these role players are limited. Their scoring comes from advantages created either by the Dončić-Irving duo or the defensive end. Irving has done his part, but Dončić must join him. If he can’t, the team’s only winning formula is on the defensive end. And as good as that’s been, Game 4 showed that they can’t control another team’s shotmaking.
There still may be a hot shooting display from the role players yet to come. The non-Dončić, non-Irving Mavericks are shooting just 25 percent on 3s this series. Someone like P.J. Washington is a prime example. He’s been quite good this series, but Dallas can still ask more of him. He had Game 3’s iconic image, the half-court stare down pose against the Clippers’ bench, only to shoot 4 of 9 in Game 4 and have George steal his pose after George made a contested 3 over him.
There’s nothing wrong with that, to be clear. I’m enjoying the petty back-and-forth that any series like this should have, and I bet you are too.
Murray: Oh, I am completely enthralled. This is not a series for squares. The chippiness started immediately. You had a Zubac flagrant foul in Game 1. Dončić got fired up enough to get a technical foul in Game 2 that gave the Clippers the lead entering the fourth quarter. Game 3 was an absolute melee, with four hostile act reviews and five second poses for the benefit of those with flash photography.
This brings me to the officiating as a whole. Tim, you’re an SB Nation alum, and I’m a ClipperBlog/TrueHoop Network alum. We had a nice little rule over there where we didn’t discuss the officiating at all. We weren’t homers and didn’t need to wade in the waters of crying about calls. My work study was being an official for basketball games I wasn’t playing in, so if anything, I have an appreciation for the role of the “third team.”
This series is incredibly hard to officiate. Physicality is a buzzword. You have the two most isolation-heavy teams in the league. Past and present scoring champions, future Hall of Famers. Stars and veterans. And because the referees are indeed human, they have relevant histories with the stakeholders in this series.
I don’t bring up officiating to theorize conspiracies, complain or campaign. Rather, I find it an interesting character in the subplot of the series and a relevant factor in the postseason as a whole. It goes deeper than just these two teams. But both teams have felt the presence of the officials and have addressed it accordingly.
Clippers head coach Tyronn Lue said after Game 4, “stay off the officials — let’s play through it. There’s going to be some calls here or there, but so what.” Irving said after Game 4 that he wasn’t going to criticize the officiating crew, acknowledging that “they were going to call it tighter — they knew how competitive and physical the series has been already.”
Whether it has been George’s foul trouble or Dončić’s temperament, Irving put it best. It’s a player’s league, but they have to adjust to the way the game is being called. It is objectively a factor to watch for the remainder of the week.
Cato: So what’s left in this series? What questions remain?
Murray: Leonard’s status would be the big question, but I do not expect him to play again in this series. What’s the point? The Clippers had to answer all kinds of questions about identity a month ago. Well, they found it without Leonard, so the rest of the team has to earn him back, because he clearly needs more time than it will take for the Clippers to end this series.
That does lead me to question who can and will play in this series. LA has an eight-man rotation without Leonard. It looked like Mason Plumlee was on the edge of fading out but then he had a necessary contribution in Game 4. But is the Mavericks’ rotation even shakier?
Cato: It might be. While I feel that Kidd went away from Dante Exum too quickly, he’s been poor. Josh Green brings more energy but worse defense than him. Tim Hardaway Jr.’s injured, for better or worse. Dallas needs Dončić’s regular-season output, but the team also needs to find him minutes to rest. If they can survive five minutes in Game 5 with him on the bench, I think that’s a sign that Dallas will be all right this series. But after those first four games, I’m done making predictions. We’ll see soon enough.
(Top photo: Tim Warner / Getty Images)
