NBA Playoffs Clippers-Spurs Preview Round 1 Game 6: Do or Die

2015 NBA Playoffs First Round
	vs
56-26		55-27
Game 6 - Thursday, April 30th, 2015, 6:30 PM
AT&T Center
Prime Ticket, TNT, KFWB 980 AM, KWKW 1330 AM
Series Schedule
Spurs lead 3-2
Game 1 - Sun April 19, 7:30 p.m. in Los Angeles, Clippers 107-Spurs 92
Game 2 - Wed April 22, 7:30 p.m. in Los Angeles, Spurs 111-Clippers 107 (OT)
Game 3 - Fri April 24, 6:30 p.m. in San Antonio, Spurs 100-Clippers 73
Game 4 - Sun April 26, 12:30 p.m. in San Antonio, Clippers 114-Spurs 105
Game 5  Tue April 28, 7:30 p.m. in Los Angeles, Spurs 111-Clippers 107
Game 6  Thu April 30, 6:30 p.m, Prime Ticket, San Antonio, AT&T Center
Game 7* Sun May 2, Time TBD, Prime Ticket, Los Angeles, STAPLES Center
* if necessary
Win-Loss Breakdown
19-11	East	23-7
37-15	West	32-20
30-11	Home	33-8
26-15	Road	22-19
19-22	.500+	23-19
37-4	.500-	32-8
Probable Starters
Chris Paul	PG	Tony Parker
J.J. Redick	SG	Danny Green
Matt Barnes	SF	Kawhi Leonard
Blake Griffin	PF	Tim Duncan
DeAndre Jordan	C	Tiago Splitter
Key Reserves
Austin Rivers	PG	Patty Mills
Jamal Crawford	SG	Marco Belinelli
Hedo Turkoglu	SF	Manu Ginobili
Glen Davis	PF	Boris Diaw
Spencer Hawes	C	Aron Baynes
Advanced Stats 2014-2015 Regular Season
96.96 (11th of 30)	Pace	95.93 (17th of 30)
109.8 (1st of 30)	ORtg	106.2 (7th of 30)
103.0 (15th of 30)	DRtg	99.6 (3rd of 30)
Injuries/Other
Matt Barnes (rotator cuff) probable		Tiago Splitter (calf) probable

The Back Story (The teams split the regular season series 2-2):

The Big Picture: Oh me, oh my. Losing Game 5 at home in a tied series, thus being forced to beat the defending champs in their house in order to stay alive--file that one under "tough loss." But the good news is, THERE'S STILL A CHANCE.  If the Clippers can pull off a win on Thursday, they can bring this baby home for Game 7 and WIN IT ALL! --sorry, what was that? You mean this isn't the NBA Finals? Huh. Could've fooled me.

In addition to some tough (read: shitty) officiating in Game 5, the Clippers shot a mind-boggling 1-14 from three and missed 16 free throws. You have to think that if this Clipper team is worth their salt, that won't happen again in Game 6. Maybe this is a Game 3 to Game 4 situation again, where they bounce back from a bad performance and win convincingly. The good news is, Doc Rivers teams have won on the road in every playoff series he's coached. The bad news is, one of his teams hasn't won twice on the road in the same series since 2011. It'll be a tough climb for the Clippers, but there's gold in them thar hills.

The Antagonist: Death, taxes, and Tim friggin' Duncan. The now 39-year old has been solid as a rock against the much younger and more athletic Clips, and there are rumors floating around that he actually smiled during Game 5. On top of all that, you could argue that he's not even the most important player for the Spurs in this series. He and Kawhi Leonard are shooting a combined 55% from the field in the playoffs.

San Antonio has shown some vulnerability against the Clippers, but they seem to have a switch they can just turn on when they need to buckle down and win a possession or two. It seems like the Clippers best strategy in Game 6 is just to run the old guys ragged, because they can't seem to keep up when the Clippers are clicking in the open court.

The Subplots

• Game 6's. In the Clippers' long and storied playoff history, they've played five Game 6's and won only one. That win came in 2006 in the second round at home against the Phoenix Suns, but the series was lost in Game 7.
• The shooting conundrum. As contributor Justin Russo predicted in this piece about the curious amount of missed open shots in the series, the team to get over the hump first and hit their open shots would likely win. The Spurs hit 15 of 35 open looks in Game 5, while the Clippers went 9-30.
• Jamal. Our little offensive juggernaut off the bench has averaged 11.2 points per this series, but he's only shooting 17% from three. Wrong time to cool off, old chap. I think we need a patented Crawford four-point play, and STAT!
• Keep hacking away, jerks. DeAndre Jordan finished 7-16 from the line Tuesday night, and is making only 36% of his free throws in the playoffs. With numbers like that, don't expect Gregg Popovich to change his Hack-A strategy any time soon.
• Hedon't. Clearly, Hedo Turkolgu is not a big part of the playoff rotation, but he's appeared in 4 of the 5 games and has only dropped two points. Call me crazy, but before the playoffs started, I had fantasies about Hedo checking into the game for only a couple minutes, and raining 3-balls of terror down on the unassuming Spurs. There's still a chance.
• Connections. After five games in a row against these guys, if you don't know the connections, I have to assume you don't care. At this point, the connections are best summarized as, "the Clippers played the Spurs in the first round of the 2015 playoffs, and all hell broke loose."
• Get the Spurs side of things at Pounding the Rock.