Then the Clippers wouldn’t have to play Lester Hudson so long. Or Austin Rivers. Or Jamal Crawford as point guard. It’s been no surprise that L.A. has been thin all season, a state of affairs attributable to Doc Rivers’ love of signing players who are either related to him or had at least one good playoff series in the Eastern Conference five years ago. Would Jordan Farmar have been a suitable replacement for Chris Paul? Probably not, but he would at least be able to run something resembling an NBA pick and roll and avoid turning the ball over on every third possession. At least they have Blake Griffin to back him up.
The “Doc is a bad GM” storyline has been beaten to death, but the Paul injury really highlights the painful choices he has forced on himself as a coach with his personnel choices. Ejecting Jared Dudley along with a pick to get him off the books is the flashier bad move, but losing your only competent backup point guard and not replacing him is almost unthinkable. Sure, the Clips had Nate Robinson, but they refused to even sign him to a rest-of-season deal after his 2nd 10-day contract.
That left the team with the aforementioned Hudson, who, to his credit, is a really good Chinese Basketball Association player. What he is not is a reasonable replacement for Paul. For that matter, neither is Robinson. Their offense is generally predicated on Paul’s passing, and without him on the floor, whether it be due to in-game rest or an injury, the rest of the lineup struggles to operate at the same level. Blake Griffin can run the offense for stretches, but the likes of DeAndre Jordan and J.J. Redick rely on being set up. Paul is excellent at it, and no one else on the roster can fill that void. It didn’t have to be this way.
The Rockets, who were derided heavily in the offseason for sacrificing quality depth in failed free agency bids, actually look like a deep team, especially in comparison to these Clippers. The losses of Omer Asik, Jeremy Lin, and Chandler Parsons were supposed to rob Houston of the bench they’d need to compete in the West. Instead they took some calculated risks, notably on Josh Smith and Corey Brewer, and those have paid off more than anyone could have expected.
The emergence of those two may not have been expected, but it was at least in the realm of possibility. Glen Davis and Hedo Turkoglu were never going to be game changers, and Rivers the younger’s ceiling at this point is pretty low. If you want to grab veterans grab some that might actually help. If you’re going after youth make sure there’s a real chance of improvement.
Of course, it doesn’t matter how thin your bench is if your opponent constantly turns the ball over and intermittent hacking grinds the game into a near-unwatchable slopfest. James Harden’s one-man quest to out-turnover the Clippers’ alleged point guards didn’t help Houston’s game 1 aspirations to put one in the bag without Paul on the floor. It was an apathetic display by a home team who needed to start the series off on the right note.
That the Rockets’ defense was unable to stop a team who quite literally had Griffin bringing the ball up and initiating the offense is damning, perhaps more so than letting Rivers burn them. They missed their share of open shots, but it was on defense where they lost. They should have managed to punish Doc and the Clippers for their short-sighted roster creation. Instead Houston is facing the very real possibility of being knocked out of the playoffs by a team effectively playing their power forward at point guard.
