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Clippers vs Nuggets Series: Final Player Grades
The Clippers fell apart in Game 7, getting blown out by the Nuggets to lose in the first round of the playoffs for the third year in a row. Here are my grades for the players (and Ty Lue) for their entire postseason contributions.
Starters
James Harden: B- (Previous Grades: B+, B)
This might seem like too positive a grade for Harden considering his complete no-show in the second half of Game 7 and his equally dismal outing in Game 5. Maybe it is. But Harden was brilliant in Games 1 and 6, excellent in Game 3, and good enough in Games 2 and 4. His defense was certainly bad for most of the series, with the off-ball stuff being the largest culprit (as usual with James). But the biggest issue here is that the Clippers were just asking way too much of a 36-year-old who was a fringe All-Star level player this year. I wish Harden was more aggressive, and that’s the main reason I’m docking him so much; I do think he went out soft in Games 5 and 7. But his performance across the series – 18.7 points, 5.4 rebounds, 9.1 assists to 3 turnovers on 56.7 True Shooting) was not bad. It just wasn’t enough for the guy who’s supposed to be the second-best player on a theoretical contending team. Thus, he gets the same grade as Kawhi Leonard. Not awful, just disappointing and not quite good enough.
Norm Powell: D (Previous Grades: D+, C+)
Yeah man. This was rough. Norm’s final series numbers – 16 points on 57.8 True shooting – don’t look bad, but the film tells a different story. First, Norm was terrific on offense in the three home games – 3, 4, and 6 – but absolutely dreadful on the road. Second, his defense was abysmal, with the Nuggets repeatedly targeting him on that end. Third, his rebounding was even worse, with Norm’s rebounding rate of 4.2% being last on the Clippers by a wide margin (next was DJJ at 5.9) and further below anyone on the Nuggets (Jamal Murray at 7.4%) by an even wider one. At the end of the day, the statistical reason why the Nuggets won (outside of some shooting variance) is rebounding – they had a rebound percentage of 52.7% compared to the Clippers 47.3% and were better on both the defensive (71.6% to 66.2%) and offensive (33.8% to 28.4%) ends by a real gap.
Rebounding is absolutely a team effort, but Norm is the weakest rebounder on the Clippers, and my biggest criticism of Ty Lue was sticking with him to the extent he did throughout this series. Norm was a huge reason why the Clippers were in the position they were in – his scoring and overall offensive juice kept the Clippers afloat when Kawhi was out. But his complete inability to do anything besides score (and he didn’t even do that well in this series) came home to roost against a bigger and more physical Nuggets team.
Kris Dunn: B (Previous Grades: A-, B)
It’s incredible how much different things can look in real-time compared to the math after the fact. Kris Dunn ended up shooting 35.7% from three on the series (10-28), a higher percentage than his regular season numbers as well as a higher percentage than Norm Powell, Bogdan Bogdanovic, or Derrick Jones Jr. He finished up making just four fewer threes than Norm, five fewer than Kawhi, and six fewer than James. Yes, his shots were the most open. Yes, his misses on those open looks were deflating. Yes, the Nuggets’ ability to help off him made the Clippers’ offense more difficult. But ultimately, I think Kris Dunn played well in this series considering his role and expectations. His defense was fantastic, he chipped in on the glass (9.2% total rebound rate, 7.6% offensive rebound rate), and was careful with the ball (one turnover in the entire series).
Dunn certainly looked shook in his brief first-half stint in Game 7 after being benched in Game 6 – but the Clippers actually won his minutes by 2! His defense, energy, rebounding, and ballhandling were essential to the Clippers all season, and I think Ty Lue firmly pivoting away from him for more offense-only players like Norm and Bogi allowed the Nuggets to play the end of the series on their terms. It probably doesn’t make a difference in the end, but I do wonder what would have happened if Ty had benched Norm instead of Dunn in the second half of Game 6. We will never know!
Kawhi Leonard: B- (Previous Grades: A-, B)
Kawhi Leonard’s numbers for this series, in a vacuum, look fantastic. 25 points, 7.6 rebounds, 4.7 assists, 1.1 steals, and 0.7 blocks in 37.9 minutes per game with 53.7/40.5/77.8 shooting splits (63% True Shooting) on mostly good defense is not to be sneezed at. Remove his insane Game 2 performance and those numbers take a significant dip. And that’s not realistic to do, of course, as his Game 2 was legendary and hugely important for the series. But superstar players, above all, need to provide consistency and a floor. This series, Kawhi was not close to a consistent superstar level performer, with averages in the other six games of 22.6 points on 49/36.6/74.2 splits.
More importantly, by the eye test, he consistently failed to bend the Nuggets defense – they were content to have Aaron Gordon play him straight up – or punish weaker defenders like Jamal Murray or Michael Porter Jr. Simply put, Kawhi was very good in this series, but not close to great – and you usually need greatness from your best player in a playoff series in order to win. We finally got healthy Kawhi… and it was not enough. It’s a brutal outcome, but I think it also provides some closure on this era of Clippers’ basketball. The Clippers can’t count on Kawhi to be the best player on a contending level team going forward, even if he is healthy. Considering he’s almost 34, and the number of major injuries and surgeries he’s had, that fact isn’t shocking – it’s incredible he’s still even this good. But seeing Kawhi not coming to the rescue playing out in real time was a dose of cold water.
Ivica Zubac: A- (Previous Grades: B+, A-)
Big Zu averaged 17.4 points, 10.1 rebounds, 2.3 assists, and 1.0 blocks per game in 36.6 minutes while shooting 65.9% from the field and effectively defending the best offensive player in the NBA. His play fell off a little bit as the series went along (he was at 20 and 12 at one point) but Zu was still awesome in this series in the exact same way he was down the stretch of the season. You can nitpick his free throw shooting, his slow decision-making in the short roll at times, and his body language, but this was a fantastic close to Zu’s breakout season. The Clippers have their center of the present and future, and Zu is the only player on this roster who I could see being in a similar role in three years.
Bench
Bogdan Bogdanovic: D (Previous Grades: F, D-)
This was a bad series for Bogi, who had by far his two best outings in Games 5 and 7, when the Clippers were utterly blown out. Despite being competitive and playing with energy, he was food on defense for the majority of the series, being taken advantage of by every Nugget who he was matched up against. Somehow, incredibly, Bogi averaged 3.6 fouls per game in his 16.7 minutes on average, meaning he would have fouled out of every game if he played even 30 minutes. On offense, Bogi was never able to find the range, shooting just 29.2% from three for the series – and considering that his three-point shooting is his biggest strength as an NBA player, that just wasn’t good enough. I like his competitiveness, and his ability to get to the midrange was flashed a couple times later in the series, but the first three games were a disaster, and his only real big game was in the Game 5 loss. I think Bogi is a nice fit on this team and I’m excited to see him on this roster with a full training camp and preseason, but this series was really, really rough.
Nic Batum: A (Previous Grades: A, A-)
This wasn’t a perfect series by Nic Batum (he missed a ton of open looks in Game 4 and was mostly a non-factor in Game 5), but considering his role on the team, age, and expectations, he batted furthest above his weight. His performances in Games 3 and 6 were two of the best playoff performances by a Clippers’ role player in franchise history considering two-way impact, and he was a monster on defense the entire series even as his ability to make a difference on offense waxed and waned. The Clippers knew what they were getting from Nic Batum when he was on the court, and at the end of the day they could really only say that about one other Clipper: Ivica Zubac. It’s unbelievable he averaged 1.7 blocks per game in 24.6 minutes, and that he regularly defended both Jamal Murray and Nikola Jokic. What a series for Nico, who remains as important as ever to the Clippers even as he enters his late 30s.
Derrick Jones Jr.: C- (Previous Grades: C, C)
DJJ was nothing if not consistent. Unfortunately, that consistency was just not good enough for what the Clippers needed. I kind of think he had the series that people are ascribing to Kris Dunn – he missed most of his threes and was not able to make the Nuggets pay at all for leaving him open – but without Dunn’s impact in other areas of the game. DJJ finished 6-20 from three (30%), went 3-8 from the line (37.5%), and was a complete non-factor as a rebounder, with just eight defensive rebounds in 129 minutes. There was also zero playmaking for others, with a grand total of two assists (albeit with only three turnovers). The defense was good, and there were some nice slashes to the rim, especially later in the series, but unfortunately DJJ was mostly just a non-factor. A tough series for him.
Ben Simmons: C+ (Previous Grades: A-, B-)
Ben barely played in the first half of Game 5 and then did not play the last 2.5 games of the series, so I can’t adjust my grade on him much. At the end of the day, Ben gave the Clippers a couple of competent games of backup center minutes with good shifts on Jokic, and that beat expectations. However, his complete lack of offensive capabilities made him unplayable, and it’s really hard to imagine him being a consistent rotation player for a good team at this point unless he can somehow get over his fear of attacking the basket and getting to the line. It’s a shame, because the combination of size/defense/rebounding/passing/ballhandling could be useful even without the shooting. Alas.
Ty Lue:
B-
Judging NBA
coaches is always extremely difficult, as the main thing we can see on the
court is rotations, and that’s only a small part of their job. We don’t know
how they work in the locker room, how they’re motivating the team, or what
their messaging is – maybe Ty was harping on the right things and the team just
wasn’t executing. I actually think Ty’s rotations this series were pretty good.
He probably could have played Nic Batum more, and I think he should have gone
more away from Norm Powell compared to Kris Dunn, but there was nothing
incredibly glaring. The biggest issue I had with the Clippers this series was
that their offense seemed stuck in the mud much of the time against a team with
only a couple good defenders, and they did not seem to have a clear plan of how
to best attack the Nuggets’ weak points on defense. How much of that is on coaching
vs on players is unclear, but Ty must get some of the blame for that. And, I
really do think going away from Kris Dunn in Game 6, which resulted in his
jitters on offense in Game 7, was ultimately a bad choice, because it meant
conceding style of play to the Nuggets. Not an abysmal series from Ty but also not
his finest work.