Last Updated on April 25, 2019 by CCAR Staff
PLAYA VISTA — Doc Rivers needed his guards to go get it, and in Wednesday’s season-extending victory in Oakland, they did.
In addition to his 33 points and 10 assists, Lou Williams‚ the slightest Clipper on the court, had four rebounds. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander grabbed three, as did Landry Shamet, who fought with Warriors big men for a couple during crunch time and won. Jerome Robinson added two.
And leading the charge for not just the guards, but the whole team: Patrick Beverley, the Clippers’ leading rebounder this series despite being, at 6-foot-1, one of the shortest players on the roster with Williams.
Beverley wrestled a career-high 14 rebounds in Game 5, when the Clippers outrebounded the Warriors for the first time this series. Over the first five games, Beverley has 34 rebounds, two more than Danilo Gallinari, who is 6-10.
The Clippers need Beverley’s boards because defensively they’ve been encouraging Golden State shooters to move toward the basket instead of backing up for deep shots, and they are employing a small-ball lineup offensively to stretch the Warriors’ defense, inserting the 6-9 JaMychal Green into the lineup in place of 7-1 Ivica Zubac.
“We’re so stretched defensively against them,” Rivers said. “The bad part of the top-lock is we are off their bodies when a shot goes up … so we know we have to do that to stop those three guys (Kevin Durant, Steph Curry and Klay Thompson), but we also know it opens up rebounding. And our guards made a concerted effort in getting their hands dirty and getting in the fight.”
Beverley also scored 17 points Wednesday, which NBA history buffs might be interested to learn makes him the second player of his stature or shorter since 1985 to score at least that many points and bring down at least 14 boards in a playoff game. The other player to do it? Another standout under Rivers: Rajon Rondo.
“For me, it was the energy he brought,” Williams said of Beverley’s play on the boards, which included six rebounds in the first quarter.
“They threw the first punch in the first quarter,” agreed Curry, who, at 6-3 has been the Warriors’ second-leading rebounder this series with 34 to match Beverley’s total. “(We) didn’t box out well, so they had plenty of extra possessions. And that gives anybody confidence.”
Montrezl Harrell said Beverley’s rebounding stokes the Clippers’ fire.
“It’s just about heart, fight and will,” Harrell said of Beverley, who also corralled 10 rebounds in Sunday’s loss, when as a team the Clippers were crushed on the glass 49-33.
“He was matched up with 4s and 5s, and he kept coming out with the rebound,” Rivers said Wednesday night. “He’s a tough dude.”
But Beverley demurred: “I gotta give a lot of credit to the bigs. They’re fighting with (Andrew) Bogut and (Kevon) Looney, and they’re doing a great job boxing out. I’m just getting the scraps of it.”
Pat Beverley is 6’1, 185 lbs and got 7 more rebounds than any other player tonight.
— Andrew Donlan (@donlan_andrew) April 25, 2019
FOR THE RECORD BOOKS
For the record: It wasn’t Williams’ idea to star in the role of super sub.
“Nobody’s ever offered me a different role,” he said Wednesday night. “Everybody asks me, ‘Why don’t you start?’ I’m not the coach! I think Doc is my eighth coach in my career; nobody’s offered me a starting job, so I’ve perfected the one that I have.”
And in so doing, he’s won two NBA Sixth Man of the Year awards (so far), become the league’s all-time leading scorer off the bench and, with his pal Harrell, made all sorts of history this season.
For the record books: Williams and Harrell are the only set of teammates who have both scored at least 20 points off the bench in three or more playoff games since the NBA began tracking starters in the 1970-71 season.
