PHOENIX — Be prepared to be astonished by logic-defying feats and postseason spectacle the likes of which you’ve never seen before and can’t be seen anywhere else!
Welcome to the Russell Westbrook Show.
Naysayers be damned, it seems the Clippers knew what they were getting when they signed Westbrook when he came available late this season. And they knew he wasn’t a shooter.
They knew he was a fighter. A willful, indiscriminate competitor who could give an older, laid-back team the kick in the butt that it so obviously needed, and that it got in Sunday night’s 115-110 cannon shot of a victory over the Phoenix Suns in Game 1 of their first-round Western Conference playoff series at Footprint Center.
The Clippers knew they were getting a 34-year-old veteran who still plays with kid’s energy – who will need his fire to keep spreading among the ranks if they’re going to have real hope of knocking off heavily favored Phoenix in this series.
Westbrook was hot entering play Sunday, averaging 15.8 points in his 21 regular-season games with the Clippers, when he shot 48.9% from the field and 35.6% at 3-point range.
Not the case Sunday. Oh no, the former Lawndale Leuzinger High and UCLA standout was colder than anyone could have thought someone could get in the Phoenix desert.
Even so, he played so well in Sunday’s victory that afterward he was able to laugh about his 3-for-19 shooting effort postgame, amused by the statistic that he also had this line in a 2021 playoff victory.
He showed off his famous gap-toothed grin and joked: “I guess that’s a secret number. We won both games, so (shoot). If it works, then, hey, I’m looking for that!”
Clippers coach Tyronn Lue must have missed that Washington Wizards victory over Philadelphia because after Sunday’s game, he could only marvel at the best 3-for-19 game he’d ever witnessed: “I just saw tonight!”
The Game 1 victory broke from tradition under Lue, because it was the first time in…
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