The Clippers “live and die” by the three
During the regular season, the Clippers were the best three-point shooting team in the league, shooting roughly 41.1% from beyond-the-arc. As a result of them being the “best” three-point shooting team in the league, Los Angeles has just been shooting threes in this series without any purpose.
They are averaging about 35 three-point attempts per game in the postseason, yet they are only making 36.6% of their shots. This team “lives and dies” by the three-point shot and that has been very apparent in this series.
In every game of this series when the Clippers are trailing, they try to get back into the game by taking threes, which is fine, but they are taking them early in the shot clock and with no awareness of the rest of their team. There is not one guy to pinpoint on the team as the “problem” because they are all culprits of doing this!
READ MORE: NBA Rumors: 5 most likely stars to be traded in the offseason
Paul George has taken plenty of bad shots, Kawhi Leonard has taken some really bad, contested three-point shots and then guys like Reggie Jackson, Marcus Morris Sr. and Nicolas Batum have been thinking that they are in an All-Star game at times just pulling up in transition from three.
In Game 5, there are two bad three-point shots that come to mind. The first bad shot was in the second-quarter when Nicolas Batum thought he was Stephen Curry pulling up from three-point land in transition on a 3-on-2, only to air-ball his shot and give the ball back to Dallas. Then at the end of the game after a timeout, the Clippers inbounded the ball to Kawhi needing a three-pointer to tie the game and he pump fakes once in the corner and then shoots a fadeaway three that ends up being an air-ball.
It is things like this that have hurt the Clippers in this series and is a big reason why they are trailing 3-2 and could possibly lose this series. If the three-point shot is a part of the Clippers game plan that is fine, but they need to take much better shots than they are right now.
