Intestinal Distress: Clippers 78 Philly 77
Have you ever been to Philadelphia? It’s ugly there. Will Smith claims to be from West Philly on his little television show, and I can’t verify the truth in that, but I can verify that it’s ugly there as well. Ugly buildings, ugly people, ugly food, ugly weather…ugly. This leads me to last night’s game…the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. After a crushing (and unnecessary) loss at Cleveland the Clippers need to get back on the right track, but facing the 1st place 76ers is not an easy way to do it. In typical Clippers fashion, they bent to the will of their opponent on the road and were forced to play the 76ers style of basketball (Ugly!). The first half was a mess with the Clippers barely even shooting a percentage from the floor but Mo Williams bailed them out with a late run, and they entered the locker room down only 2. The second half was their chance to get out and run, and hopefully clean up the mess that the 1st half started, yet they continued the theme of nasty ugly basketball. My grandfather once said, “if you mess with shit, you get it all over you”, this is precisely what happened to the Clippers.
The last 2 minutes of the game were like an epiphany. Many sports writers (and also Bill Simmons) have been writing about how Derrick Rose is the best PG in the NBA. Some have even thrown Russell Westbrook’s name around. Irving in Cleveland, Rubio in Minnesota, EVEN Jeremy Lin in New York have been getting press, but Chris Paul proved last night that it’s a bit early to start sucking each other’s dicks. The Clippers fumbled the lead away with 18 seconds to go (Thanks again Gomes, sorry Mrs. Gomes), but Chris Paul took it upon himself to win the game. He drove to the hoop and tried to pass the ball to Blake Griffin, but he kicked the pass (as is Clipper custom) and Paul recovered. CP3 grabbed the basketball, took a few dribbles and then faded away with a lucky, yet pretty, swish to put the Clippers up 1 with 3 seconds to go.
In a situation I can only call divine intervention, Philly did not manage to get up a final shot to steal the game from the Clippers and the road trip was finally clinched to not be a losing one. The Clips hopped on the plane and headed to lowly Charlotte. In the words of the great philosopher Socrates, “Let’s not fuck this up.”
My thoughts on the Lakers losing to Jeremy Lin’s Knicks:
