I’m still not entirely sure what happened in the final frantic seconds of the Rockets’ win over the Thunder in Game 7. But there was something fitting about Chris Paul furiously lobbying the officials in the decisive moments only to come up short in the end.
Oklahoma City couldn’t inbound the ball down two with 1.1 seconds left. Billy Donovan called a timeout to avoid a five-second violation, but Paul drew an off-ball foul on James Harden at the same time. The referees were going to honor Donovan’s timeout call before Paul convinced Scott Foster, whom he has a long and tangled history with, as he discussed after the game, that the foul came first. Because it was off the ball in the final two minutes, the Thunder got one free throw and the ball again. But Danilo Gallinari missed the freebie and the Rockets broke up the ensuing inbound pass and time expired.
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Paul’s performance down the stretch of Game 7, including a costly turnover against Eric Gordon and passing up a chance to take a final shot with 15 seconds left, was made worse by the way he trolled Harden after winning Game 6: “When it gets to clutch time, fourth quarter, some people are built for it, some people shy away from it.”
He was coming off one of the best clutch regular seasons of all time, but he has never been known for late-game heroics in the playoffs. The final seconds of Game 7 felt like divine retribution from the basketball gods. There was no reason to call a cheap foul on Harden on an inbound pass, and there would have been no justice in the Thunder winning the series on it.
Soccer fans call what Paul did in that situation “shithousery.” It’s a broad term that encompasses players who bend the rules as relentlessly as possible to create even the tiniest advantage, from cheap shots to working the refs. Paul has mastered that dark art as well as anyone who has ever played.
It was on full display in the Thunder’s first-round series. Facing Harden, another future first-ballot Hall of Famer who spends as much time manipulating the refs as playing basketball, only made it worse. Just look at this harebrained sequence with one minute left when both tried to draw offensive fouls:
Most refs don’t like calling fouls in crunch time because they don’t want their decisions to decide the outcome. Harden and Paul play in a way that leaves the refs no choice but to influence the game.
The final seconds in regulation of Game 3 were even more egregious. The Rockets were inbounding the ball up one with 24 seconds left when Paul tried to draw an offensive foul on Harden only for Harden to return the favor and draw a defensive foul on him. The two ended up falling to the floor at the same time as if they were in the WWE instead of the NBA:
Harden and Paul are both incredibly crafty. Fans would say their style of play is just a reflection of their competitiveness and desire to win. But that argument has never sat right with me. Basketball is a game meant to entertain people. And there’s nothing entertaining about watching refs spend huge chunks of time in the fourth quarter at the replay monitor and ultimately decide the game.
Like in any other sport, there are unwritten rules in basketball. Everyone has to agree to a certain standard of behavior to create an entertaining product. The refs cannot blow the whistle every time down the floor. That doesn’t mean players should be tackling each other to win games.
What separates Paul from players like Harden is that he flops while also playing borderline recklessly on defense. He toes the line on most possessions, grabbing and holding opponents and daring the refs to make a call. You cannot be a player who clears space with nut shots while also wildly exaggerating contact whenever you are hit.
His antics can be somewhat endearing at times, like earlier this season when he snitched on Jordan Bell for an untucked jersey, initiating a chain of events that led to an unlikely Thunder victory.
But there are also shameless and mean-spirited instances. In this sequence from an otherwise meaningless game nearly a decade ago, Paul flops in an effort to draw a technical foul on DeMarcus Cousins:
This is what Cousins said about Paul: “Some players I don’t respect. Just their playing style of basketball. I don’t respect it. I feel like it’s basically cheating and I don’t respect a cheater. If that’s your tactic to winning, I don’t respect you.”
It’s not like Paul needs to do this stuff. He’s a fantastic player who single-handedly revived the Thunder at age 35, and averaged 21.3 points on 49.1 percent shooting, 7.4 rebounds, and 5.3 assists per game in the series.
He has also drawn raves for his leadership as president of the players’ union in the midst of unprecedented crisis and turmoil. But even that role has come with controversy. Some around the league believe that Paul took the job partly to change a rule in the CBA that prevented players his age from signing a supermax extension.
He just seems to always end up coloring outside the lines. Maybe Paul should be celebrated for doing whatever it takes to win … but he doesn’t actually win all that much.
Paul, who has a career 7-10 record in playoff series when he’s been healthy, is also famous for his postseason collapses. One of his worst came when he was playing against the Thunder in 2014. It was Game 5 in a second-round series tied 2-2. The Clippers had the ball up two with 17 seconds left. Paul tried to draw a shooting foul in the backcourt instead of just accepting the foul. The result was a turnover that allowed the Thunder to tie the game and ultimately win the series:
One of the smartest players in the NBA got his own team eliminated by trying to do too much. That’s the story of Paul’s career in a nutshell. Live by shithousery and you will die by it, too.
