In the 1,213th game of his career and at 36 years old, Chris Paul had the game of his life to reach the finals for the very first time and put the Phoenix Suns within touching distance of an NBA championship
Friday 2 July 2021 13:08, UK
When Chris Paul made his NBA debut with the New Orleans Hornets in 2005, running the point with aplomb straight from the get-go, Devin Booker was nine years old.
He was being raised alone by his mother, Veronica Gutiérrez, in Grand Rapids, Michigan, while his father Melvin Booker attempted to keep a fading journeyman's basketball career alive in Turkey and then Russia.
Deandre Ayton was only seven, growing up in Nassau, the colourful sun-soaked capital of the Bahamas. He was still five years away from even setting foot in America, where he would eventually arrive in San Diego as a 6ft5in 12-year-old.
Monty Williams, meanwhile, had just taken his first assistant coaching job with the Portland Trail Blazers after nine seasons as a player in the league. He had interned with the San Antonio Spurs and Gregg Popovich that summer, helping Manu Ginobili and Tony Parker win their second rings. Tim Duncan his third.
Five years on, as Booker began to star for the Grandville High School's varsity basketball team in his freshmen year and Ayton flew into California for the very first time, Williams was offered the head coaching position at the New Orleans Hornets, becoming the youngest in the NBA at 38 years old.
His point guard? Chris Paul, who was coming off the back of an injury-ravaged 09-10 season during which the only NBA head coach he had ever known - Byron Scott - had been fired. That season would be the Point God's final one in New Orleans when, after another first round playoff exit (their second in three years), the franchise decided to trade their star asset rather than risk losing him in free agency.
Controversially, Paul was denied a move to the Los Angeles Lakers of Kobe Bryant and Pau Gasol, with the league - who owned the Hornets at the time - overruling it and David Stern citing "basketball reasons". That's a story for another time.
A decade on from their lone year in The Big Easy, Paul re-joined Williams, this time in Phoenix, where Ayton and Booker were already making waves after a fairy tale 8-0 run in the Florida bubble to cap 2019-20. They narrowly missed the playoffs but given they had held the worst record in the West the season prior, it was clear significant progress was already being made.
With Paul orchestrating on the court, a dominant 51-21 regular season record - good for the second seed in the West - soon followed. So too did the steepest of first round playoff hurdles: the reigning champion Lakers. In the same situation a decade earlier, the Hornets were bounced in six games.
Ten years older and wiser, both Williams and Paul conspired to outthink, outplay and outmanoeuvre their storied rivals, turning the tables for a Game 6 elimination of their own.
At that stage, Paul was still playing through a shoulder problem he re-aggravated and scoring mostly in the single digits game-to-game. Like everything that had come to fruition through his 16-year career, that series was hard-fought and hard-earned. From being drafted to the joint league-worst Hornets, suddenly displaced in Oklahoma City due to Hurricane Katrina, to the infamous Lakers trade, nothing for Paul had ever come easy.
His Los Angeles Clippers and Houston Rockets teams had fallen apart through injury at the worst possible moments. It seemed for all the world history was going to repeat again this time round: Chris Paul leads a contender, they look great, everything implodes. The same old story.
Except that ever since that Lakers series, and bar two games missed due to the league's Covid-19 protocols, everything has finally fallen into place for the future Hall of Fame point guard. The Lakers were bounced. The Denver Nuggets and league MVP Nikola Jokic were swept aside in four, with Paul averaging 26 points and 10 assists per contest. Now the Clippers are gone, too.
The Atlanta Hawks and Milwaukee Bucks remain in the East. But those two teams are having injury trouble of their own. The path to a title has never been clearer than now.
Ayton and Booker in particular have looked completely undaunted in their new playoff environment. They're now Western Conference champions, straight off the bat. So too is Mikal Bridges. Cameron Payne was playing in the Chinese Basketball League last season, his NBA career all but written off, but now looks like one of the best sixth men in the league.
Jae Crowder has been here before as part of deep playoff runs with the Boston Celtics and the Miami Heat last year, reaching the Finals, but had to shake off a horrid 2-20 (10 per cent) three-point shooting slump through his first three games of the postseason. He did and hasn't looked back, going 5-9 from deep for 19 points during Wednesday night's closeout victory.
Williams has consistently looked like the sharpest head coach throughout the playoffs, perhaps reminding everyone why it should have been his Coach of the Year award rather than Tom Thibodeau's. With a coach he knows he can trust and a stellar supporting cast rapidly coming of age alongside him, headlined by a dominant big man in Ayton and flamethrower scorer in Booker, all that was left for Paul was to do what he does best.
Play basketball. Lead. Win.
Perhaps he sensed something after the Clippers fought their way back into the Western Conference finals in Game 5 on Monday. Paul George had put his team on his back in the absence of Kawhi Leonard, again, and scored 41 points.
It was the Suns first home defeat in five playoff games and perhaps a timely reminder that they weren't quite there that, even as the bookmakers, pundits and casual observers had started to pre-emptively crown their new kings.
But last night, in Game 6, Chris Paul slammed the door shut on the Clippers for good in a 130-103 blowout win. He scored 41 himself, tying his own post-season best, 31 of which came in a blistering second half when it felt as though the Point God couldn't miss. His shooting figures, 16-24 from the field (67 per cent) and 7-8 from three (88 per cent), tell that story alone.
That isn't all. It was the most points Paul has ever scored in a half of basketball, coming in the 1,213th game of his career and at 36 years old. When he re-entered the game with 1:43 remaining in the third, the Clippers had just scored 10 unanswered points and cut the lead to only seven.
So Paul hit a three. Then he made a layup. Then he hit another three. Suddenly the lead was back up to 15. He went on to score 27 of the Suns' last 35 points, obliterating Los Angeles in a stadium he had called home for six seasons. By the time he checked out, Phoenix were up 24 and Paul, for the first time in his 16-year career, could call himself an NBA finalist.
What's fascinating is that this scoring masterpiece should come now, at this stage in his career, as untypical as it is of the player. Paul is a selfless pass-first maestro. The conductor of the symphony rather than the finger-tapping lead guitarist. Through his 1090 regular season games he has only taken 24 shots or more on 21 occasions. Wednesday night was Paul tapping into that quiet reserve of talent he has, one that extends impossibly deep but he only seems to utilise when absolutely necessary.
His 61 points in high school to honour his murdered grandfather further evidence.
Then again, it was also remarkably fitting. We have seen this before, after all. Throughout his career. We've even seen it through these playoffs, both against the Lakers and the Nuggets, where Paul pulls the strings for three quarters until the game gets slightly too close for comfort, at which point he reminds everyone who the Point God is and how exactly he got that moniker in the first place.
In other words, he flicks the switch. Now you look at it all, the entire timeline from 2005 to last night, it's hard not to see the grand narrative unfolding: that his entire career has been building up to this and only this. Everything else is just context helping the legend take shape.
Find whichever quote you like about opportunity, either from Anthony and Cleopatra or Eight Mile. Paul finally got his. And he took it like a man who has been waiting every day of those 16 years. Who knows he might not get another in circumstances as perfect as these.
After being awarded the Western Conference finals trophy, Paul said he was just so happy for the people around him. He shouted out his teammates. His family. Even the Clippers organisation. The Point God ensuring everyone gets theirs even on his night and his night alone.
"Coach... we did this 10 years ago in New Orleans. We've still got a lot of work to do but we're just going to enjoy this," he added. "16 years, 16 years of this. Surgeries, hard work, losses, bad losses. But we're going to enjoy tonight. We're going to enjoy it. "
Some things, as Paul now knows, are well worth the wait.
