The Grip - FRI 4.26.19

John Havlicek can finally take a break

Friday, April 26th, 2019

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Written while listening to MC Hammer's Too Legit to Quit

“It is the unemotional, reserved, calm, detached warrior who wins, not the hothead seeking vengeance and not the ambitious seeker of fortune.”-- Damian Lillard on his Instagram, quoting Sun Tzu’s The Art of War, but really taking a shot at Russell Westbrook

 The Cippers are wonderfully annoying   

First of all: The Golden State Warriors are completely fine. Two lazy losses to a first-round opponent are not a reason for panic; if they lose to Houston next round, it won’t be because of one more trip to Los Angeles. They can lock in whenever they need to. And, looking to make a fifth straight NBA Finals, they can pretty much admit that. Second of all: Does this not look like the most heat underground rap group of the all-time?  Lou Williams is already a rapper, of course, and has a Drake song dedicated to him, but we need to get Montrezl Harrell and Patrick Beverley some ghost writers ASAP. [READ: Inside the magic of Lou and Trez, LA's freestyling bench stars]For real, though: By winning another game in Golden State on Wednesday, 129-121, and pushing this series back to Los Angeles for a Game 6, the Clippers have validated this fun-as-hell season that’s essentially been a long free agency pitch for this upcoming offseason. They’ve won 48 games, outshined LeBron, pushed the champs to six games, have #twomaxslots, plus a good coach, a great market, Jerry West, and an owner in Steve Ballmer who’s very corny, but isn’t James Dolan, which is an important distinction.  

[READ: How the Clippers can go from 8-seed to 1-seed]

Popovich; sustained grumpiness and greatness 

The Spurs beat the Nuggets last night, 120-103, to force a final deciding game in Denver on Saturday at 10 p.m. EST, which makes sense because this series continues to make very little sense. 

Something to think about:

A lot of people believe Gregg Popovich, 70, is going to retire after he coaches the national team during the 2020 Olympics.

, Tim Duncan style. 

Whenever he does board the old guy train, he will surely leave the team in good hands, but the league will be hugely diminished, and there’s certainly a chance Saturday will be his last NBA game, so let’s admire this beloved grouchy weirdo while we still can by watching highlights of him

.  

(In some ways, the perfect way for him to go out would be as coach of an average but scrappy team with two fringe All-Stars and a Division II player.) 

Hondo can finally take exhale

(Bill Russell, Red Auerbach and John Havlicek/AP file)

John Havlicek, one of the great players of the 1960s and ‘70s, who Bill Russell once called the greatest all-around player he had ever seen, died on Thursday at the age of 79. 

Havlicek, or

Hondo

, went eight-for-eight in the NBA Finals, bridging the Russell era of the late ‘60s and the Havlicek-Cowens era of the mid-’70s. 

He still holds the Celtics’ franchise record for points (26,395), despite never playing with a 3-point line, and was known as a pioneer of the sixth-man role and

.

He retired the NBA’s all-time leader in games (1,270) and only missed 30 regular season contests; he averaged just under 40 minutes for his playoff career; he averaged 47.2 minutes per game throughout the 1969 playoffs;

; he was Russell’s lead assistant when both were still playing; he ran and ran and ran on the court, and, it turned out,

; he played at Ohio State with Bob Knight; and he lived an excessively interesting life for someone born into Ohio rurality. 

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