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Doc is catching a lot of heat here. I still defend him. I think he tried to do a lot of the right things this year but they didn't work out because of the personnel, mostly.
I know that sounds strange given the talent and depth they had, but let's look at some things.
First, this weird platoon point guard situation. You're not making offense/defense substitutions that frequently but their situation demands it constantly. You have two guys who each play only one end of the floor, essentially, and neither one is a traditional point guard. At some point Rivers began trying to make Beverly the extension of him on the floor, have him become more of a real point guard who ran the offense and contributed more himself. That didn't really work in my opinion, and it was a tough experiment given that Beverley is hardly a young player to be molded. They could have run Kawhi more as a point forward, I guess, but overall this team didn't have a clear leader offensively. That hurt them. PG also sucked in another big game, but why did they even get to a Game 7 here?
Second, let's look at their defense. On paper, it has two DPOY caliber guys, a perimeter stopper and several players who are at least adequate. Only Williams you'd say is a poor defender, Shamet a work in progress, etc. But that doesn't mean you have a good defense. I saw them during the year where their D was flat out terrible, unable to guard the three-point line and not much better inside. The first thing there is that they don't have an elite or even adequate rim protector. No matter how good your wings and ball-stoppers are, it's really hard to equal or compensate for a top guy in the paint. From there, they never really jelled defensively and that brings me to my third and final point.
Lastly, you had a team that was constantly putting guys on minute restrictions and otherwise load managing. The pause may have taken away from the impact of regular-season workloads and decisions for some teams, but in my view the Clippers' approach was so exaggerated or at least extensive that it still affected them. They never clicked on D consistently and moving up guys to playoff rotation minutes did not appear to take well at all. It was a lack of chemistry, in part, but also a lack of rhythm.
Obviously I understand most if not all of these shortcomings are Doc's responsibility to some degree, but we are talking about winning the title here, a very difficult task with a tight margin for error. It's hard to overcome fundamental flaws like these. And you will know MY JACKET IS GOLD when I lay my vengeance upon thee.
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