Game 7's

Wow.  Both LA teams survive.  On the Clips side, I think Reggie Evans was the difference maker in this series.  Memphis' strength is their inside game and you could see Evans giving Zbo a tough time on defense all series.  His energy, rebounding, and just general I-don't-give-a-shit attitude is what enabled the Clips to win.  I barely remember this guy playing during the season.  In game 7 he's playing over Griffin and Jordan at the end of the game.  Pretty remarkable.  Obviously Paul won several of these games for the Clippers and is the most important player and MVP of the series.  But the rest of the Clippers team - particularly their starters - got jittery during the playoffs.  Evans, Martin, Bledsoe, Young, and Williams were the guys who didn't get nervous and raised their games.

It seems almost impossible for the Clippers to beat the Spurs.  Paul and Griffin are banged up.  They just had a slug-fest series against Memphis and the Spurs had a cakewalk.  I saw one Clips-Spurs game earlier this year, the one where Paul handed the game to the Spurs in the final moment.  Without Ginobli the game was a toss up.  The Clips should have won.  But then again, the Clips weren't supposed to win this game 7 and they have Paul, who you know won't allow the team to quit, even though there are multiple guys on this team who aren't gamers.  I don't see any evidence Butler, Foye, Jordan, or Griffin upping their game in the playoffs.

Lastly, on the Clippers, you gotta give Del Negro some credit in this series.  The guy rode his second rotation in game 7 to a victory.  Ballsy play.  Something Doc Rivers or Pop would do.  He still has that look of being a deer in the headlights and did that dumb time out earlier in the series.  But hey, he just led the Clips to a playoff series victory against a very good Memphis team (albeit a bit banged up).

On the Lakers side, what can you say?  Gasol showed up and made the difference in game 7.  Give the guy credit.  People are always jumping on Gasol, like he wasn't the reason the Lakers won 2 championships in the last 4-5 years.  I dare anyone to play with Kobe and be motivated to play every night when he chucks up 30 shots a game and calls out teammates when he flings you a bad pass that you can't handle.  Other than that, I was impressed with how Denver played and their general team make up.  I'm hoping Denver or Memphis or teams built as teams rather than these teams build around individual players wins a championship one of these years to reverse this "you need a closer or alpha dog" theory of basketball.  Karl did some interesting strategic things to defeat that style - doubling Kobe and Bynum whenever they got the ball and forcing Blake and Artest to beat them.  They did - so give them credit - but it was a fun game to watch.

Was it just me or did the refs in both games make egregiously poor calls down the stretch as if David Stern has a little mic calling down and insisting they make the games closer and the big market teams make it to the second round?