10 Things Happened Last Night We Never Expected
Tuesday's three-game Western Conference slate was loaded with surprises, proving that even after six months of regular-season games and a nearly complete first round, it's still best to expect the unexpected.
That's not to say predictability took the night off.
The Oklahoma City Thunder's season ended in a brutally foreseeable way, with the Houston Rockets outscoring them 27-9 when Russell Westbrook sat and closing out the series with a 105-99 win.
Kawhi Leonard was reliably monstrous in leading the San Antonio Spurs to a 116-103 victory over the Memphis Grizzlies, giving them a 3-2 series lead. But he got help from previously absent sources, which the Spurs will count as a welcome surprise.
But from Westbrook showing signs of his humanity while piling up 47 points to Gordon Hayward besting a nasty virus, Tuesday offered several shocks.
These are those.
Russell Westbrook Got Some Space
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For, like, five minutes.
And that was about it.
But still, maybe this is something the Thunder should think about when planning for next year.
Coming into Game 5, the five-man unit of Russell Westbrook, Alex Abrines, Doug McDermott, Andre Roberson and Steven Adams had logged a plus-28.5 net rating in just nine postseason minutes. Head coach Billy Donovan trotted it out midway through the first quarter, which counts as a surprise—even if what ensued was in no way shocking.
Westbrook suddenly had room to operate.
Houston continued to (justifiably) ignore Roberson, but misdirection plays involving Abrines and horns sets that sent McDermott flying toward the wing scrambled the Rockets defense and opened the lane for Russ to attack.
It's a wonder what a little shooting can do, isn't it?
Abrines hit just one of the four clean three-point looks Westbrook generated with his newfound breathing room, but driving angles were available, and the Oklahoma City offense looked uncharacteristically fluid.
It was fun while it lasted, as the lineup didn't see the court again.
Turns out Time Travel Is Real
2 of 10Eric Gordon had six dunks this season, 10 lat year and zero in 61 games during 2014-15.
He's not a high-flyer anymore, is the point.
When Rockets owner Leslie Alexander walked along the sideline during the game to chat with referee Bill Kennedy, he wasn't protesting a call. He was actually asking Kennedy if traveling back in time to abduct the 2010 version of Gordon (with plans to insert him into Game 5) was a violation of any kind.
Alexander took Kennedy's confused silence for the go-ahead, signaled to D'Antoni to sub in 2010 Gordon, and the rest is preserved forever on a poster.
Russ Ran Out of Gas
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Forget the triple-doubles; Westbrook's best claim to the MVP this year was his incredible late-game performance.
He led OKC to a clutch net rating of plus-19.9 that ranked second in the league during the regular season, never seemed to tire and always fired shots with more freshness than a player with his workload had a right to display.
Westbrook, unusually, had nothing left down the stretch in Game 5.
He shot 2-of-11 from the field in the fourth, flung up hopeless threes (he was 0-of-5 in the period and 5-of-18 on the night) and looked nothing like the superhuman specimen that shrugged off fatigue all year.
If it's possible to stumble toward a 47-point finish, he did it.
Even with shooting fouls mucking up the pace and providing ample time for him to rest in the fourth quarter, Westbrook just never found his legs. And though the Thunder lost their grip on the game in the three-minute stretch Russ sat to start the closing quarter, getting outscored by 10 points in that short span, the guy with the juice to bail them out all season looked like he'd been squeezed dry.
Everyone—even the seemingly indomitable Westbrook—has limits.
Manu Ginobili Scored
4 of 10As I sit here staring with great reverence at my many shrines to Manu Ginobili, I don't feel like I should have to assert the level of my respect, admiration and affinity for the 39-year-old veteran.
He'll be in the Hall of Fame on the first ballot, but he's been in the one that really matters—the one in my heart—since roughly 2003.
But dude has been awful all postseason.
Ginobili finally, mercifully notched his first points after 58 scoreless minutes in the series on a herky-jerky drive down the left side of the lane in the first quarter of Game 5. He got fouled, drilled the freebie and on his next attempt, buried a trey to tie the game.
He totaled eight points in the first quarter and finished with 10 on 4-of-6 shooting.
And though it's probably going overboard, let's also say he gave the rest of the bench confidence and also gets credit for Patty Mills ripping the nets for 20 huge points in San Antonio's win.
In isolation, it was good to see Ginobili get on the board. If this postseason is his last, going out with a goose egg in an entire series would have been devastating. But joking aside, his impact galvanized a supporting cast that has mostly abandoned Kawhi Leonard in the series and pulled back the curtain on a team that lacks offensive dynamism.
If the Spurs reserves get it going consistently, it'll get easier to believe this team is as dangerous as it was when its bench was destroying competition during the regular season.
Kawhi Leonard Missed a Free Throw
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It's a small point, but when you make 42 in a row to start the postseason, missing one foul shot counts as unexpected.
Leonard finished with a game-high 28 points and tied Tony Parker with a team-best six assists, so it's safe to say his evening wasn't marred by the clanked free throw.
Chances are, his AI coding is advanced enough to program a miss just to throw off the scent of anyone getting too suspicious about him being a human-shaped computer. It calculated that 43 straight makes would have blown his cover.
That's the simplest explanation, if you ask me.
Troy Daniels Did Other Things?
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In perhaps the strangest box score item of the night, Grizzlies sniping specialist Troy Daniels posted a plus-10 in 10 minutes without taking a shot.
Posting a plus-10 in a game your team loses by 13 is odd enough, but for Daniels to do it without a field-goal attempt, well...it's unfathomable. The guy's basketball decision tree is basically: "Can I shoot a three right now? If yes, shoot it. If no, move someplace where shooting a three is possible."
That's it.
A ridiculous 71.7 percent of his shots were treys this year, and he averaged 1.5 rebounds and 0.7 assists while playing zero defense.
Did he suddenly decide to swarm ball-handlers on D? Did he block six shots? Did he control the game with his mind?
Nah.
Sometimes, those plus-minus numbers are just coincidences. That's the case here.
But man, that's a weird one.
Gordon Hayward Beat Food Poisoning
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I get that these guys are walking basketball corporations with vast recuperative resources and a massive incentive to employ them, but food poisoning, if you've ever had it, is a vile, debilitating, unholy experience.
Even with a couple of days off and loads of fluid replenishment, it's amazing Gordon Hayward played like he did in the Utah Jazz's 96-92 win over the Los Angeles Clippers in Game 5.
After missing Game 4 with a case of the creeping crud, Hayward looked none the worse for wear.
Utah's All-Star wing posted 27 points, eight rebounds and four assists on 9-of-16 shooting and led Utah to a critical win on the road. Thanks to Hayward's intestinal resiliency, the Jazz area headed back home for a potentially series-clinching Game 6.
Try harder next time, "sandwich from a place." Hayward can't be knocked out (for more than one game) by you.
Chris Paul Didn't Do More
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It's not surprising that the Clippers lost, or that they seem ticketed for yet another early playoff out.
That's sort of their whole thing.
But what didn't seem likely heading into Game 5 was a mortal performance from Chris Paul, who, to this point, had been the Clippers' superhero.
With averages of 26.8 points, 10.8 assists and 6.0 rebounds through Game 4, Paul had been the best player in the series by a considerable margin—using the series to announce the same thing he does almost every postseason: that he's an MVP-caliber talent who might be the best to ever play the point guard position.
And head coach Doc Rivers even went with some reverse psychology, telling Mark Medina of the LA Daily News before Game 5: "I don't know if he can do more. He's only done everything."
You'd think Paul's natural response would have been to do everything...and then do even more of it. That he'd be somehow greater than ever.
But he was merely his usual level of great, posting 28 points, nine assists and four rebounds in defeat.
None of this is his fault. The Clippers, as they exist now, are a lottery team without him.
But it felt reasonable to expect the world of Paul in this one.
Joe Johnson Continued Making a Difference
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I don't care if it's been happening all series.
It doesn't matter if he hit a game-winner and has used the same deliberate, bulk-based backdown game that so many observers soured on to take over fourth quarters against the Clips.
It just never seemed possible that Joe Johnson would keep doing it.
But there he was in Game 5, hitting key threes to break Clippers runs, scoring 14 points, burying a dagger with under 20 seconds left to push the lead to five and stabilizing a young Jazz team that needed it.
As steady as Johnson has been all year and as obviously suited as his game is for high-leverage minutes at power forward in the modern NBA, it's stunning that he's still making his mark on a playoff series in 2017.
Yet here we are.
Patrick Beverley Laughed Last
10 of 10Rockets irritant Patrick Beverley is more of an action guy.
A frantic, MCL-spraining, violence-inciting, under-your-skin instigator kind of action guy.
So when he calmly heaped verbal shade on Westbrook post-elimination, it was an unanticipated treat.
Stats courtesy of NBA.com and Basketball Reference unless otherwise indicated. Accurate through games played April 25.
