[ad_1]
Whereas the Clippers reached a stage in the course of the postseason they’ve by no means visited, they left the playoffs once more dogged by the two-word phrase that’s outlined their final decade — “what if?”
What if Donald Sterling had stored his mouth shut as a substitute of getting caught on tape, an all-time distraction given to among the best Clippers groups ever? What if Blake Griffin stayed healthy within the postseason? What if Chris Paul didn’t tear up his hand when it bought caught in Gerald Henderson’s jersey? What if the pandemic hadn’t compelled the crew to shut it down proper after they had been heating up?
Virtually each exit comes with these questions, even when the reply normally is that the crew merely wasn’t ok.
But with Kawhi Leonard, the Clippers’ finest participant, compelled out of the postseason due to a knee damage, it gave the most recent “what if” loads of validity.
The Clippers, a minimum of this time, aren’t alone of their distress, accidents enjoying a task (and in some instances, obliterating) title goals all around the NBA.
Throughout the road from Staples Heart whereas the Phoenix Suns clinched the Western Conference title, LeBron James chilled at a Sparks sport. It’s not unimaginable to think about that he might’ve been on that courtroom, main a surging Lakers crew with him and Anthony Davis wholesome.
It simply by no means occurred.
Then there’s the crew the Suns beat after they got here again from a 2-1 deficit to bounce the Lakers, the Denver Nuggets. Jamal Murray, their second-best participant, missed the final chunk of the season with a torn knee ligament.
Earlier than the Clippers misplaced Leonard towards the Jazz, they benefited from dealing with Utah with out start line guard Mike Conley due to an injured hamstring.
Earlier than we crown the Suns because the luckiest crew left standing, Chris Paul was rendered half-useless by a stinger within the first minutes of the playoffs and later needed to overcome COVID-19 to get to his first Finals.
Within the East, Boston Celtics star Jaylen Brown didn’t make it to the playoffs. Joel Embiid, Philadelphia’s MVP candidate, needed to play on a torn meniscus. And the Brooklyn Nets, the NBA’s most-talented crew, needed to attempt to survive with a hampered James Harden [hamstring] and an absent Kyrie Irving [ankle].
That was all earlier than the Jap Convention finals, when Atlanta star Trae Younger injured his foot in an a freak accident with an official and Milwaukee star Giannis Antetokounmpo hyperextended a knee. Neither participant was capable of play in Recreation 5 of their collection Thursday evening.
Medical officers working for NBA groups have pointed to the compressed nature of this season’s schedule, a call pushed partly as a technique to fulfill NBA broadcast companions who misplaced content material due to the pandemic shutdown.
League officers have maintained that damage charges aren’t out of line with previous information, even when a file variety of All-Stars have missed playoff video games this 12 months. They are saying the hurry-up schedule, which was agreed to by the gamers’ union, was additionally about getting the NBA again to a standard schedule as shortly as potential.
The reality might be someplace within the center. The NBA’s choices to hustle the beginning of the 12 months to maintain its place on Christmas broadcasts and to you’ll want to end the playoffs earlier than the Summer time Olympics meant much less time than regular for relaxation and restoration.
This 12 months, the NBA will play a 72-game schedule and a full postseason in 213 days if the NBA Finals go seven video games. In 2018-19, the final “regular” season, the NBA performed 82 video games and a full postseason in 241 days — it will’ve been 244 had these Finals gone seven.
There are in all probability some traces that may be drawn between these numbers and the accidents we’ve seen this season — and crew trainers and docs are drawing them. However accidents enjoying a task within the playoffs isn’t something new.
From Isiah Thomas’ ankle in 1988 to Byron Scott’s shoulder and James Worthy’s ankle in 1991 to Kevin Durant’s calf (after which Achilles) in 2019, it’s an unlucky actuality within the sport.
The silver lining to all these accidents is a little bit of a postseason chaos, with surprising characters and recent storylines born out of all these sprains and strains. In a means, it’ll in all probability find yourself conducting what the purpose of the playoffs must be anyway — it’ll finest inform the story of this season.
Nothing this 12 months was regular, from the extreme testing routines to the empty arenas to the masked coaches and journey restrictions. Why ought to the playoffs capping this season be any completely different?
So as a substitute of questioning what might’ve occurred had Leonard been wholesome or if Davis’ knee had by no means buckled, embrace what is occurring as this season involves its end line.
None of this pandemic season has been regular; the league’s champion shouldn’t be both.
window.fbAsyncInit = function() { FB.init({
appId : '134435029966155',
xfbml : true, version : 'v2.9' }); };
(function(d, s, id){
var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];
if (d.getElementById(id)) {return;}
js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id;
js.src = "https://connect.facebook.net/en_US/sdk.js";
fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs);
}(document, 'script', 'facebook-jssdk'));
[ad_2]
Source link