LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. — Jamal Murray sat down in his Jesus Shuttlesworth shorts, with a paper cup in hand and the Los Angeles Clippers in his pocket. Murray did not eliminate the favored Clippers by himself, but it sure felt that way. The Nuggets star is not a freak athlete. But he is a 6-foot-4 true point guard who can make shots from anywhere on the floor—and, as we have discovered in these playoffs, at any moment of the season.
Murray scored 40 points on 26 shots in Game 7. Clippers stars Kawhi Leonard and Paul George combined for 24 points on 38 shots. These are not advanced stats, but they are how-you-advance stats.
The Nuggets came back from down 3–1 for the second straight series to make the Western Conference finals. They won Game 7, 104–89. The Clippers lost in the second round again. People will say they Clippers are failures (let’s go with “disappointment”) or mercenaries (who isn’t?), but they can still represent Los Angeles by doing what Los Angeles residents do: Watch the Lakers in the playoffs.
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The difference in this series?
Murray: “A lot of times it’s about trust. Coach (Michael Malone) has given us a lot more trust to run the offense. As long as we play defense, we can do whatever we want on offense. It’s all about trust.”
Clippers coach Doc Rivers: “We start missing shots and you can see us trusting less and less and less.”
Clippers guard Lou Williams: “A lot of the issues that we ran into, talent bailed us out. Chemistry didn’t.”
Murray: “It’s fun to silence everyone talking negative about us.”
Paul George: (Checks Damian Lillard’s Twitter feed, weeps.)
For Murray, this was not a hot night or a hot series; it is how he plays. Murray played at least as well in the epic seven-gamer against the Jazz in the first round. He is a star, a foundational player, the kind every team seeks. The Clippers put George, one of the great wing defenders in the league, on Murray, and he kept hitting shots. The Clippers then started doubling Murray off every ball screen, to force the ball out of his hands; it worked, in the sense that they got the ball out of his hands, but there is a risk to doing that. Other players were open, and the Nuggets took advantage.
The Clippers appeared to have the most talented team in the league, they were title favorites, and they lost in the second round. Also, they are the Clippers. Together, this makes them an easy punchline. George lost early again. Rivers lost in the second round again. All true. They will hear it. They have no choice.
But their failure is not as simple as people will make it out to be. Look, if there was one thing everybody could agree on with the Clippers, it’s that Leonard is a clutch superstar. This is the guy who led two franchises to championships, who won Finals MVP against LeBron James’s Heat and the dynasty Warriors. As Rivers said Monday: There is never a guarantee somebody will play well, but with Kawhi, you know the moment will not be too big for him.
Well, with his season on the line, Kawhi Leonard shot 6-for 22, scored 14 points and was minus-21—the worst mark of anybody on the floor.
Did Leonard become a choker now as soon as he put on Clippers gear? Of course not.
The Clippers were never right. They never peaked. Before the pandemic, there was not much urgency. After the pandemic, there was chaos. Williams left the bubble for a funeral, which became a story when he got caught getting chicken wings at a strip club. Paul George admitted the bubble was wearing him down mentally (he isn’t alone there) and it took him a while to play like the star he is.
“Our guys missed a lot of the bubble,” Rivers said “(Montrezl Harrell) missed 30 days, Lou 14, Pat (Beverley) 16. Some of that came back and haunted us.”
To understand how wild this series was—and, really, how wild the bubble playoffs are—consider this: Murray said when the Nuggets trailed the series 3–1, he still felt they had the better team. Rivers said when the Clippers led 3–1, he knew his team wasn’t right.
“I was never comfortable,” Rivers said. “I just wasn’t. I just knew, conditioning-wise we had guys that just couldn’t play minutes, and that’s hard. Two and three times a night, we start getting it going and guys had to come out. So no, I was never comfortable. I can tell you that up front.”
In Game 7, Rivers had to take guys out because they were tired. As he said, “That’s not typical for Game 7.” But they asked out. What could he do?
Yes, every team had to deal with the bubble, and the Nuggets lost guard Will Barton to an injured knee. But the Clippers only signed Leonard and traded for George last summer. They had no foundation.
We often overstate our ability to read athletes’ minds, but it’s easier in basketball than in most sports. You could see it in the second half of this game: The Clippers didn’t really believe in the way a team needs to believe to win a Game 7. Everything was a little off. JaMychal Green drove in for a monster dunk, the kind that usually brings a crowd to its feet. But there was no crowd. He missed. George fetched the long rebound but then he passed into the stands. Williams drove in for a layup. He looked like he was bracing for a taller player to fly in and block it. Nobody did. The shot bounced around the rim and away. Then Murray hit a three-pointer.
Beverley turned around when a fast break didn’t develop and passed to George, who fired up an open three-pointer that rimmed out.
They looked like they had installed their offense that morning. Some of that was probably just fatigue. Some was that they just didn’t have the time together that they needed. It is weird to say that the more experienced team won this series, but that was how it looked. Murray is only 23, but he has been training for this his whole life, and he has been playing with fellow star Nikola Jokic for four seasons. When they barely missed the playoffs at the end of the 2018 season, Leonard was a San Antonio Spur. George had completed his first season with Oklahoma City.
With more than a minute left, Nuggets president Tim Connelly left his seat to head toward his team’s locker room. “Tim!” somebody called from behind. It was Clippers president Lawrence Frank, stopping Connelly to congratulate him. It was a nice gesture. Frank put together a great roster. Connelly put together a great team.
GUADALAJARA, Mexico – Canada’s Marina Stakusic fell 6-4, 6-3 to Poland’s Magdalena Frech in the quarterfinals of the Guadalajara Open tennis tournament on Friday.
The 19-year-old from Mississauga, Ont., won 61 per cent of her first-serve points and broke on just one of her six opportunities.
Stakusic had upset top-seeded Jelena Ostapenko of Latvia 6-3, 5-7, 7-6 (0) on Thursday night to advance.
In the opening round, Stakusic defeated Slovakia’s Anna Karolína Schmiedlová 6-2, 6-4 on Tuesday.
The fifth-seeded Frech won 62 per cent of her first-serve points and converted on three of her nine break point opportunities.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
TORONTO – Alejandro Kirk’s long single with the bases loaded provided the Toronto Blue Jays with a walk-off 4-3 win in the 11th inning of their series opener against the St. Louis Cardinals on Friday.
With the Cardinals outfield in, Kirk drove a shot off the base of the left-field wall to give the Blue Jays (70-78) their fourth win in 11 outings and halt the Cardinals’ (74-73) two-game win streak before 30,380 at Rogers Centre.
Kirk enjoyed a two-hit, two-RBI outing.
Erik Swanson (2-2) pitched a perfect 11th inning for the win, while Cardinals reliever Ryan Fernandez (1-5) took the loss.
Blue Jays starter Kevin Gausman enjoyed a seven-inning, 104-pitch outing. He surrendered his two runs on nine hits and two walks and fanned only two Cardinals.
He gave way to reliever Genesis Cabrera, who gave up a one-out homer to Thomas Saggese, his first in 2024, that tied the game in the eighth.
The Cardinals started swiftly with four straight singles to open the game. But they exited the first inning with only two runs on an RBI single to centre from Nolan Arendao and a fielder’s choice from Saggese.
Gausman required 28 pitches to escape the first inning but settled down to allow his teammates to snatch the lead in the fourth.
He also deftly pitched out of threats from the visitors in the fifth, sixth and seventh thanks to some solid defence, including Will Wagner’s diving stop, which led to a double play to end the fifth inning.
George Springer led off with a walk and stole second base. He advanced to third on Nathan Lukes’s single and scored when Vladimir Guerrero Jr. knocked in his 95th run with a double off the left-field wall.
Lukes scored on a sacrifice fly to left field from Spencer Horwitz. Guerrero touched home on Kirk’s two-out single to right.
In the ninth, Guerrero made a critical diving catch on an Arenado grounder to throw out the Cardinals’ infielder, with reliever Tommy Nance covering first. The defensive gem ended the inning with a runner on second base.
St. Louis starter Erick Fedde faced the minimum night batters in the first three innings thanks to a pair of double plays. He lasted five innings, giving up three runs on six hits and a walk with three strikeouts.
ON DECK
Toronto ace Jose Berrios (15-9) will start the second of the three-game series on Saturday. He has a six-game win streak.
The Cardinals will counter with righty Kyle Gibson (8-6).
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
CALGARY – Mired in their first four-game losing skid in 20 years, the Calgary Stampeders are going back to Jake Maier at quarterback on Saturday after he was benched for a game.
It won’t be an easy assignment.
Visiting McMahon Stadium are the Eastern Conference-leading Montreal Alouettes (10-2) who own the CFL’s best record. The Stampeders (4-8) have fallen to last in the Western Conference.
“Six games is plenty of time, but also it is just six games,” said Maier. “We’ve got to be able to get on the right track.”
Calgary is in danger of missing the playoffs for the first time since 2004.
“I do still believe in this team,” said Stampeders’ head coach and general manager Dave Dickenson. “I want to see improvement, though. I want to see guys on a weekly basis elevating their game, and we haven’t been doing that.”
Maier is one of the guys under the microscope. Two weeks ago, the second-year starter threw four interceptions in a 35-20 home loss to the Edmonton Elks.
After his replacement, rookie Logan Bonner, threw five picks in last week’s 37-16 loss to the Elks in Edmonton, the football is back in Maier’s hands.
“Any time you fail or something doesn’t go your way in life, does it stink in the moment? Yeah. But then the days go on and you learn things about yourself and you learn how to prepare a little bit better,” said Maier. “It makes you mentally tougher.”
Dickenson wants to see his quarterback making better decisions with the football.
“Things are going to happen, interceptions will happen, but try to take calculated risks, rather than just putting the ball up there and hoping that we catch it,” said Dickenson.
A former quarterback himself, he knows the importance of that vital position.
“You cannot win without good quarterback play,” Dickenson said. “You’ve got to be able to make some plays — off-schedule plays, move-around plays, plays that break down, plays that aren’t designed perfectly, but somehow you found the right guy, and then those big throws where you’re taking that hit.”
But it’s going to take a team effort, and that includes the club’s receiving corp.
“We always have to band together because we need everything to go right for our receivers to get the ball,” said Nik Lewis, the Stampeders’ receivers coach. “The running back has to pick up the blitz, the o-line has to block, the quarterback has to make the right reads, and then give us a catchable ball.”
Lewis brings a unique perspective to this season’s frustrations as he was a 22-year-old rookie in Calgary in 2004 when the Stamps went 4-14 under coach Matt Dunigan. They turned it around the next season and haven’t missed the playoffs since.”
“Thinking back and just looking at it, there’s just got to be an ultimate belief that you can get it done. Look at Montreal, they were 6-7 last year and they’ve gone 18-2 since then,” said Lewis.
Montreal is also looking to rebound from a 37-23 loss to the B.C. Lions last week. But for head coach Jason Maas, he says his team’s mindset doesn’t change, regardless of what happened the previous week.
“Last year when we went through a four-game losing streak, you couldn’t tell if we were on a four-game winning streak or a four-game losing streak by the way the guys were in the building, the way we prepared, the type of work ethic we have,” said Maas. “All our standards are set, so that’s all we focus on.”
While they may have already clinched a playoff spot, Alouettes’ quarterback Cody Fajardo says this closing stretch remains critical because they want to finish the season strong, just like last year when they won their final five regular-season games before ultimately winning the Grey Cup.
“It doesn’t matter about what you do at the beginning of the year,” said Fajardo. “All that matters is how you end the year and how well you’re playing going into the playoffs so that’s what these games are about.”
The Alouettes’ are kicking off a three-game road stretch, one Fajardo looks forward to.
“You understand what kind of team you have when you play on the road because it’s us versus the world mentality and you can feel everybody against you,” said Fajardo. “Plus, I always tend to find more joy in silencing thousands of people than bringing thousands of people to their feet.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
