It’s an odd year for basketball with the OKC Thunder making final preparations for the NBA Draft that is occurring July 29th. That’s more than a full month later than the typical date for the event.
In fact, the entire NBA schedule has shifted in response to the coronavirus pandemic that hit the globe over a year ago. The resulting effect was a halt to the 2020 calendar and the completion of the regular and postseason in a Disney bubble. It rolled over for this season’s campaign which began just prior to Christmas.
A shortened 72 game regular season was designed to allow for as many games as possible. As the league nears the completion of another season it’s required the playoffs to extend into July, the draft to shift by a month, and will likewise mean a later start to free agency and the NBA Summer League. Fortunately, things are set to get back on track to the typical itinerary for the 2021-22 campaign.
That means the NBA Finals is still active although a champion could be anointed tonight if the Milwaukee Bucks win Game 6.
Former OKC Thunder captain Chris Paul seeks to push NBA Finals to pivotal Game 7
One person who is banking on the title not being decided until Thursday is former OKC Thunder captain Chris Paul. It’s been an up and down postseason for the veteran who Thunder Nation fell in love with in a single season. Albeit fans in Oklahoma City were already predisposed to rank him as a favorite as he was theoretically OKC’s first superstar. This is because he played his first two NBA seasons in OKC with his New Orleans/OKC Hornets because of Hurricane Katrina.
Paul dealt with a shoulder impingement in round one versus the Lakers. Battled back from that to sail through the Nuggets semi-finals series. Just as things were looking up for the Point God he was hit by COVID and had to miss the first two games of the Western Conference Finals against his former Clippers team.
CP3 closed out that series registering arguably his best performance of the postseason with 41 points, four rebounds, eight assists, three steals, no turnovers, and drilled seven of his eight 3-point attempts.
Paul will need to bring a similar effort to the Fiserv Forum this evening if he’s to keep his dream of winning the Larry O’Brien trophy alive. This is the first time in his 16 year career that he’s appeared in an NBA Finals and at 36 this may be the only opportunity he gets to win a title.
Diving into the series, Paul has been shadowed by the taller, Jrue Holiday who is a beast on the defensive end. Through five games CP3 has taken only eight free throws and isn’t getting the same type of superstar calls his counterpart Giannis Antetokounmpo is getting.
He’s also uncharacteristically had issues hanging onto the ball averaging 3.6 turnovers per game in the series. During the season Paul averaged 2.2 turnovers per game. He lowered that in each of the three prior series with 1.5, 1.3, and 2.0 versus the Lakers, Nuggets, and Clippers.
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The majority of the damage occurred in three games in the middle of the series when he coughed up the ball six, four, and five times but got back to his typical self in Game 5 with only a single turnover.
Aside from his turnovers, he’s only had one subpar game which occurred in Game 4, and was unfortunate given how close the Suns came to winning that match. If he scores nearer to his series average of 21 points Phoenix wins but he struggled in that match posting only 10 points.
While losing the title would be a tough pill to swallow there’s another reason why Paul likely wants to push this series to its gamut. His foul on Giannis at the end of Game 5 sealed the loss as he sent the Greek Freak to the line and although Antetokounmpo had a rough night at the charity stripe (4 of 11) that was one of his makes and pushed the Bucks lead to four meaning the Suns couldn’t attempt a 3-pointer to force overtime.
Paul and his young troop will need to deliver their A-Game in a hostile environment tonight but can lean on their NBA best road record for support. Here’s hoping CP3 has a great Game 6 performance to lead his club to victory forcing one more game with the hope of hoisting Larry O’B.