This week’s edition evaluates two hot teams, the Clippers and the Wizards, and looks for signs of potential regression
Davis Rich | Editor-in-Chief
Los Angeles and Washington enter the second round as hot as anyone else in the league. The Clippers won two consecutive elimination games over the defending champs to advance, while the Wizards throttled the Raptors in four games and shocked Atlanta in Game One and hung around without John Wall in Game Two. As well as these two teams are playing, they are flying pretty close to the sun, and some factors could cause regression in the next few weeks.
Los Angeles Clippers
The knock on the Clippers this year has been their lack of depth beyond the triumvirate of Chris Paul, Blake Griffin, and Deandre Jordan. With a bench unit featuring Austin Rivers and this guy, the starting group has done most of the heavy lifting this year, bringing up questions about whether the Clippers have the legs to grind through the postseason.
Doc Rivers hasn’t eased the burden to start the playoffs. The Clippers starting five has logged the most minutes out of any lineup in the playoffs. The unit slogged through a physical seven game series with San Antonio, playing over 21.3 minutes per game but posting a net rating of -4.7 points per 100 possessions. While the Clippers smacked the lethargic Rockets in Game One–even without Chris Paul– Griffin, Jordan, JJ Redick and Matt Barnes combined to play 157 minutes. That’s 65% of the total minutes in a game played by only four players.
Yes, the Clippers beat the Rockets shorthanded on the road, but you have to wonder if the hot shooting from Matt Barnes and Austin Rivers is sustainable, and if Los Angeles can keep up the defensive intensity necessary to contain James Harden. Los Angeles looks like the favorite to catch the Warriors in the West, but once they get there, will they wilt from exhaustion?
Washington Wizards
The narrative for the Wizards during the postseason reads like an ESPN 30 for 30 teaser–“What if I told you the Wizards, the hottest team in the East, are being spearheaded by a journeyman point guard flung from the Kings like a booger and a goggles-wearing, second year player already labeled a bust?” Ramon Sessions and Otto Porter have a combined net rating of 29.2, meaning that the Wizards are 29.2 points better than opponents over 100 possessions when the duo is on the floor (though not necessarily together).
The emergence of Sessions and Porter illustrates a larger trend for the Wizards offensively. Take a look at the offensive ratings for Washington players in the postseason. The outlier in the group is Nene, with a 102.6 offensive rating. The seven other serviceable Wizards have offensive ratings above 107. Not even the Warriors, who seem to have reached the pinnacle of basketball beauty, can boast that they’ve achieved that.
The raging wildfire that is the Wizards offense can be seen in two ways: evidence of a new Washington offensive philosophy that is paying off, or a chance event where Paul Pierce is hitting threes like Kyle Korver and Otto Porter –he of 4.7 career points per game– is nearly averaging a double-double in the playoffs. As Jason Concepcion of Grantland pointed out, the Wizards have seemingly uncovered the mathematical truism that three is larger than two, adjusting to this revelation by shooting 50% more threes in the playoffs than they did in the regular season. I don’t expect the playoff-best offensive performance from the Wizards to continue, as they face stouter defense and their playoff legs grow in, but the change in offensive philosophy, be it from the coaching staff or the players, is an important thing to note.
