After delivering a triple-double in the series opener, Luka Doncic reduced 39 points in Game 2 to silence a half-capacity Staples Center crowd and made an avoidance: the LA Clippers had no answer.
As the Dallas Mavericks took a 2-0 lead in their bags to return home, the Clippers players remained in the locker room for an hour and a half. One by one, Kawhi Leonard, Paul George, Rajon Rondo, Nicolas Batum, Serge Ibaka, Marcus Morris Sr. and others all took turns talking basketball, figuring out how to survive the season. Players began to identify solutions instead of pointing fingers, even watching the movie to discuss what needed to be done to beat Dallas.
"Everyone had something to say for the good of the team," says Butam. "We just talked about, 'Well, it's not over yet. We can still do it.'
"There was no panic."
Three days later, the panic tried to set in again. The Mavericks took a 30–11 lead in the opening minutes of Game 3, and a franchise that had melted into the playoffs in recent years was on the verge of being bounced off the start.
In the midst of the most hostile crowd the Clippers had faced all season, head coach Ty Lew maintained his composure—even as Doncic brushed aside LA's defensive switching strategy.
The Clippers eventually won that night — Lew went short, swapping Ivica Zubac for Batum — and then the series in seven grueling games. They would go 2–0 again in the second round to the Utah Jazz, losing their All-NBA star Leonard in Game 4 to a right knee sprain and closing the series in six with Terrence Mann, who played Rudy. was given to Gobert. It fits.
After giving the Denver Nuggets a 3-1 lead last season, LA showed a kind of fighting and mental fortitude that wasn't in the bubble. Leonard made it clear that the team needed to be smart. After firing Doc Rivers, the franchise hired Lew, who was already a coach for the pace with concerns expressed by Leonard, a coach who helped LeBron James overcome a 50-year championship drought in Cleveland. helped to do.
After a staggering winner of a Phoenix Suns game on Tuesday night, the Clippers are looking for inspiration again for a third straight 2-0 run in the postseason.
"T-Lew," George said when asked how the Clippers reached their first Western Conference final.
"T-Lu. Adjustment after adjustment. He has to give most of the credit."
Raksha is what wakes him up in the night. Like most people, Lew keeps his phone by his bed, and the Notes folder is filled with switching schemes whenever he wakes up. The amount of views is one reason why Lew maintains an extensive playbook - with many plays he doesn't appear until the playoffs.
David Griffin, former Cavaliers general manager, thinks his regular season record would have been better every season—Cleveland won 51 and 50 games respectively in Lew's first full season as head coach—if Lew hadn't pulled back. Griffin recalls an example when the Cavs were being prepared while playing a certain defensive set.
"What are you doing?" The then Cavs GM asked Lew.
"I know how I'm going to adjust," Griffin remembers responding to Lew. "Do you want me to do it now and let them get off to a good start for the playoffs, or do you want me to do it when the playoffs start?"
"He was playing chess the whole time," says executive vice president of New Orleans Pelicans basketball operations.
Richard Jefferson enjoys watching a mental chess match between Lew and LeBron James during Cavaliers practice. James' ability to remember plays and playing situations is legendary, and superstars often test coaches for the first time.
"Bran would look at T-Lew and say, 'What are we going to do when they go with this sub? Jefferson remembers. "And T-Lew was like, 'Oh, you're talking like the third quarter when they want to go short with [Kelly] Olinic and then I'll just play Channing [Fry]. And if they do,' Blah, blah, blah. And LeBron will look at him and shake his head."
"Everyone talks about Braun's IQ, and T-Lew [can always answer that]," Jefferson says. "T-Leu has his own honor."
The 6-foot former point guard understands how to manage ego and personality. Lew played with Michael Jordan in Washington and Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O'Neill in Los Angeles. But he also knows when to take the gloves off, like when he pushed James and the Cavaliers to become the first player to pull off a 3-1 deficit in the NBA Finals and win the title in 2016 by defeating the Golden State Warriors.
At halftime that Game 7, Lew famously called out to James, begging his superstar to give him more.
"I wanted to hurt her that night," Lew recalls. "It was like maybe 2:20 in the second quarter, he came on the bench and his legs were bent and he was filing his nails and s---.
"So I came into the locker room saying, 'Bron! What f--- you doing?! You must be better! What f--- you doing? Guard Drummond! Stop turning the ball! Be aggressive! Take your shots! You must be better f---ing!"
"He was the bull---however. He was very passive."
This season, the Clippers have repeatedly mentioned Lew's touch, how the head coach relates to him, how he conveys his message to them and holds them accountable. Lew doesn't pull any punches, but does it in a way that doesn't hurt them.
“It takes some f---ing balls,” Jefferson said of Lew calling James in that Game 7. "And that requires some f---ing confidence. A lot of motherf--er didn't get that s."
After spending a season as River's top lieutenant around Leonard and George and then this season as head coach, Lew says he knows how and when to challenge his two stars. Their personalities are not only different from James but also different from each other. And this means that their attitude towards them should also be different.
"Kavi and PG are different," says Lew. "With PG, you have to be more positive with him. More positivity. That way he responds better. Kavi, you can do either way. You can call him out or you can be positive with him. You have to understand that as a coach, how to treat each player differently.
"Not everyone is the same."
When interviewed by Lew to become chief assistant at Cleveland under David Blatt, he was given a playoff scenario: after a timeout, the team needed 3 to win or 2 to have seven seconds left in the game. is required. Lu answered the questions. Where did the ball go out of bounds in the last game? Who were the officers on the floor? Who is the opposing coach in that scenario? He needed to know every detail.
"I only get a chance to do this once," Lew said.
When Lew interviewed for the Clippers job, he had a vision of how he wanted them to play offensively and defensively.
"We can't do what I intended coming into the season, like how aggressively I wanted to play yet," says Lew. "But we found a way to adapt and accommodate all seasons."
"I also had to change my coaching style," says Lew. "Just try to fit in for these guys with my style and their style and play from there."
He won't go into detail, but says the Clippers have definitely had to correct this season due to injuries from key players like Ibaka and Patrick Beverly and midseason additions like Rondo and DeMarcus Cousins.
"But I think next season, starting in training camp, like we really have to focus on a different style," says Lew. "Just with different styles of play, whether you're playing Utah, Dallas, the Lakers, whatever, you should be able to get in your bag and play differently."
Until then, the Clippers continue to try to figure out what they can do in these playoffs, tackling every deficit one lowe adjustment at a time.
"We joke," Beverly said after the Game 2 loss in Phoenix. "We called T-Lew 'Bill Belichick' with all the adjustments he made.