He hit only 10 of 24 shots while scoring 34 points, and he didn’t step forward to stop the bleeding while the Wolves were making their late game comeback from 7 points down.īut it was perhaps too much to expect Playoff P to make an appearance so soon after missing 43 games with an elbow injury. Soon afterwards he posted an expletive-laden Instagram post calling out the “weak-ass Clippers.”Ī day later the league fined him for his outburst.įor his part, all-star Paul George, the Clippers default leader in the absence of superstar Kawhi Leonard, played well but did not live up to his self-anointed nickname of Playoff P. “To be written off by them – he’s injury prone, he’s too old – to be able to play them in a play-in game and beat their ass, there’s no better feeling.”Īs the buzzer sounded, Beverly celebrated by ripping off his jersey, tossing it into the frenzied Wolves home crowd and flexing his arms towards the Clippers bench. “I gave my blood, sweat and tears to that organization,” he said. ![]() I miss it, when he’s doing it for our side, because it’s contagious.”įor his part, Beverly made it clear he still loves his former teammates, but has a major beef with the Clippers management that shipped him out of LA. “All that stuff he does is for show,” George said. But the box score didn’t show his real value: his tenacious defense and the cockiness and belief he imbued in a team that needed every bit of it to beat the playoff-tested Clippers, who made it all the way to the Western Conference Finals last season with pretty much the same roster – including Beverly, who was the fire to Paul George’s ice.Īfter the game, George lamented that the team had traded Beverly before the season when they couldn’t agree on contract terms with him. He never stopped chirping at Clipper players he still considers friends and he almost baited Marcus Morris into a technical foul and an ejection by grabbing and holding his arm.īeverly scored 7 points while grabbing 11 rebounds, an astounding feat for a 6-foot-2 guard. In a bruising, emotional game the Timberwolves, led by former Clipper spark plug Patrick Beverly, came back from 7 points down to edge the Clippers 109-104 last Tuesday night.īeverly, a fiery, combative point guard who guards his man like he insulted his sister, taunted, trolled and mind-tripped his former teammates all game long. The loser of that game would then have to play the winner of the 9-10 game between the Pelicans and the San Antonio Spurs for the 8th, and last seed. But under the new format adopted last season, they qualified only for the play-in tournament.įirst they had to play the seventh place Minnesota Timberwolves, with the winner earning the 7thseed. Under the old format they would have automatically qualified for the playoffs. Oh, sure, the Clippers made the play-in mini-tournament, whereby the teams that finished 7-10 in the Western Conference battled it out for the last two spots in the real playoffs.īut even there the Clippers got screwed after finishing the regular season in eighth place. Now the fans are hearing the same old song: wait till next year.īut the lyrics are getting old and the melody is more sour than sweet. The glory days of Shaq and Kobe and their three-peat, of Kobe and Pau and their repeat, even of Chris Paul and Blake Griffin and their trips deep into the playoffs, are ancient history. Bottom line: the traditional postseason fun and excitement – rushing home to catch the second half of a key playoff game, talking about it over the water cooler the next day - is over before it ever got started locally. ![]() No, just a week after the Lakers missed the playoffs and immediately fired Coach Frank (scapegoat) Vogel, we’re talking about the LA Clippers.įriday night’s shocking 105-101 loss to the New Orleans Pelicans made it official: for the first time since the 2004-05 season both the Lakers and Clippers were done before the NBA playoffs even got started Saturday afternoon.įollowing UCLA’s loss in the round of 16 and USC’s loss in the first round of the NCAA playoffs last month, it’s been a short, nasty and brutal spring for Los Angeles hoops fans. ![]() The epic failure stunned players, coaches, owners and fans.īut it’s not that whiny, over-the-hill, alleged-super-star-studded team of LeBron and a bunch of losers that we’re talking about now. ![]() They ended by not even making the playoffs. They started the NBA season with legit championship aspirations.
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