The defensive juggernaut shared what it meant to beat the Clippers in the play-in tournament last season.
“For us to even play the Clippers, in the play-in, it’s like a championship game for me,” former Clipper Patrick Beverley said.
In the season finale of Kevin Hart’s YouTube show ‘Cold as Balls’ in partnership with LOL Network, it was Beverley that stole the show. Discussing basketball-related topics like his rise to the NBA, relationship with Russell Westbrook, and more, the former Clipper eventually opened up about extinguishing the Clippers’ final flames for last year’s Playoffs.
He confidently noted that it was his Clippers squad that brought the organization’s first Western Conference Finals appearance, a feat even the highly-acclaimed ‘Lob City’ era Clippers couldn’t achieve.
Quickly thereafter, the veteran point guard reflected on the parting of the two parties after the team’s magical run deep in the 2020-21 Playoffs.
In the 2021 offseason, the Clippers, despite an impressive defensive effort by Beverley in the postseason, traded him to the Grizzlies for Eric Bledsoe. Beverley would later be moved to Minnesota, while Bledsoe couldn’t quite deliver what Lawrence Frank and the organization saw in him.
He said:
“For [the Clippers] to come and… [offer] five or six million dollars, I felt like it was the ultimate spit in my face when I literally changed his whole organization around…I didn’t think I got the fair end of the stick.”
Perhaps Beverley was right: he, alongside Lou Williams and Montrezl Harrell, built a culture of grit and persistence that preceded the landing of the superstar duo of Paul George and Kawhi Leonard.
Things came full circle when the Clippers and Beverley-led Timberwolves faced off against each other to clinch the seventh seed in the play-in tournament.
Admittedly, Beverley struggled to score the basket, but he did what he does best: put up a dirty, rugged fight. Logging 11 rebounds, he was one of the key members behind the late-game comeback.
After the final buzzer rung, he ran up to the logistics table and got up — with the fervor that one would have after winning an NBA championship. In the show, he reveals to Hart that he knew his celebration even before the start of the game.
It was his way of showing the Clippers what they missed out on — or in his words, flexing on your old girlfriend with your new girlfriend.
But don’t you worry — while there may be bad blood between the feisty guard and his ex-organization, his former Clipper teammates are still very good friends with him.
Even in such a comical and playful show hosted by a just as witty and jocular celebrity, Beverley’s reflection on the legacy he built in L.A. and his leaving the organization helped us understand and connect with the former fan-favorite defensive juggernaut.