Throughout the NBA play-offs, The National's resident NBA dudes Jonathan Raymond and Kevin Jeffers will be breaking down the key talking points of the night before, plus looking around the scope of the league. Here are our NBA Play-off takeaways.
• Read more: 2016 NBA play-offs: Previews, predictions and what we learnt day-by-day
Friday, April 29 scores:
Portland Trail Blazers 106, Los Angeles Clippers 103 (Trail Blazers win series 4-2)
Miami Heat 97, Charlotte Hornets 90 (Series even 3-3)
Indiana Pacers 101, Toronto Raptors 83 (Series even 3-3)
Never back down
The Clippers fought. Man, did they fight.
Austin Rivers, so long a nepotistic punchline, scored 21 and turned in a truly, memorably gutty performance, playing through a ghastly-looking busted eye. Jamal Crawford went for 32, one of those undeterrable volume-scoring nights he’s always been so capable of and that, sometimes, can turn a game on its own. DeAndre Jordan muscled down 20 rebounds. Jeff Green delivered an efficient 11-point, 5-rebound showing.
The Clippers, diminished as they were, left every ounce of themselves out there in Game 6. But the Blazers were better.
Portland are a great passing team (21 assists to 15 on Friday night), they play with incredible cohesion. They seem to have this preternatural chemistry, whether it was Mason Plumlee’s awkward tap to Al-Farouq Aminu that turned into a three-point play, or Allen Crabbe somehow wildly punching a loose ball and finding Plumlee for a subsequent dunk.
Those little moments of serendipity sprinkled throughout the contest epitomised what has been something of a charmed season in the Rose City. Left for dead after LaMarcus Aldridge bolted to San Antonio, Portland cobbled together through trade (Plumlee, Gerald Henderson, Mo Harkless), signing (Aminu, Ed Davis) and promotion (CJ McCollum) a good team around Damian Lillard. Not a great team, not a team too many even picked the reach the play-offs, but a reasonably good team. One they felt could compete.
"I said, 'If it all comes together the right way, we could be fine. We could be pretty good'," Lillard told The Oregonian ahead of the play-offs about his impressions of this team back in September.
It might have seemed a little deluded in front of the backdrop that was the fearsome Western Conference as it looked following last season.
Then the Pelicans utterly collapsed around Anthony Davis. The Rockets self-combusted all season long. Age and attrition finally caught up to the Grizzlies and Mavericks.
And there, at the end of the season, sat Portland in the fifth seed. Probably overmatched in their pairing with the Clips. They lost the first two games in the series. Then they battled to a win in Game 3, then Chris Paul and Blake Griffin got hurt in Game 4, then they closed out Los Angeles on Friday night.
Now they get the mighty Golden State Warriors. Surely this is when the wheels come off the little Portland engine that could, right? Well, they do get the mighty Golden State Warriors without their mightiest player, Stephen Curry....
Things have had a way of breaking right for the Blazers this season. A fan held aloft a sign as they finished off their win in Game 6 that read “Bring on the Warriors!”
Why not be full of confidence? Why not the Blazers?
“Now, I look like a genius,” Lilard also said of his pre-season optimism. “All our team has done has proved me right.”
Heat turned up
The Heat have always had more weapons in their series with the Hornets. Goran Dragic’s penetration game, Hassan Whiteside’s muscle inside, Luol Deng’s outside-in artistry, Dwyane Wade’s everything. There are elements to Miami that Charlotte simply can’t match.
That’s partly why it’s so surprising it’s gotten this far, why they faced a relatively stunning 3-2 deficit going into Game 6.
Throughout their three-loss skid to erase their 2-0 lead after winning the first two against Charlotte, they’ve looked just a little bit less energetic, a step slower.
They still looked like that on Friday night. If momentum mattered at all, Kemba Walker’s magnificent fourth quarter contained about five or six moments that should have lifted the Hornets into the second round and put away the Heat for good.
But Miami’s arsenal provided, as it should, an answer for everything.
Solid contributions by Deng, Dragic and Joe Johnson gave way to Wade's clutch excellence. He hit three seeming dagger shots, putting the Hornets back down every time they dauntlessly fought back in the final minutes. He hit not one but two threes, his first triples since December.
Momentum shifted back Miami’s way in Game 6. But as this contest and this series broadly have shown, that doesn’t practically amount to much.
Your guess is as good as mine for how this thing finishes.
Call it in the air
Raptors fans deserve so much better than this.
They faithfully pile into the Air Canada Centre. They loyally flood Maple Leaf Square to watch games outside. They do not deserve this yes! no! yes! no! nightmare.
Toronto started Game 6 against the Indiana Pacers with a 20-8 lead. They were outscored 93-63 the rest of the way. Every spring of hope proves a false dawn for these Raptors.
Friday night’s affair was another example of Paul George being better than anyone the Raptors have, of Myles Turner or Ian Mahinmi or George Hill or Monta Ellis (or all of them!) stepping up and giving the Pacers more well-rounded production than the Raptors have that night.
In fact, watching this series, it’s hard to imagine how the Pacers only went 45-37 this season. It’s also hard to imagine how the Raptors went 56-26.
When all their pieces mesh just right, both of these teams play at a very, very high level. During the regular season, that happened more for the Raptors than for the Pacers. Throughout this series, it has been only a 50-50 proposition.
Game 7 is in Toronto. Their oft-tortured fans will just have to hope the coin flips in their favour.
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