LOS ANGELES — The Los Angeles Clippers won 53 games and closed out the 2015-16 regular season with a top-six offense and top-six defense.
That team no longer exists.
That iteration perished when Blake Griffin and Chris Paul—the two most magnetic and important players in franchise history—suffered season-ending injuries in the same 24-hour span.
In their place walks a zombified version of the team's former self, a skeleton crew of one-dimensional specialists who best thrive when orbiting two healthy All-Stars. After winning the first two games of their first-round matchup against the Portland Trail Blazers, Los Angeles lost three straight, including a pivotal Game 5 on their home floor Wednesday night, 108-98.
The game was competitive until reality set in, when Portland's own right hook-uppercut combination—Damian Lillard and C.J. McCollum—turned off-balance and contested jump shots into iron-seeking missiles in the fourth quarter.
But despite L.A.'s brutal second half, and despite knowing Griffin and Paul are out of commission until next fall, the Clipp ...
Read Full Article at Bleacher Report - NBA
Article written by Michael Pina
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