NBA: CP3 reaches the Conference Finals: The first curse is broken

Chris Paul led the Houston Rockets to the Conference Finals with a historic performance. He’s never made it this far – but he doesn’t care about that anyway. CP3 is already thinking much further.

When the Rockets won their second game in a row at the Utah Jazz on Monday night and thus took the lead at 3-1, they could have flown back to Texas relaxed.

Because there was not much to suggest that the top seed would burn anything else – but for Chris Paul one look into the not too distant past was enough to know better. “I’ve seen a 3-1 lead before, and everything fell apart pretty quickly,” he said right after the game, focusing on the duties now to be performed.

He was referring to the 2015 Western Conference Semifinals, when Paul and the L.A. Clippers lost to his current team from Houston after a 3-1 lead. This was perhaps the biggest playoff trauma of CP3 that had never made it to the Conference Finals before. He was considered cursed as a result, and perhaps the best player in history who had never made it past round two.

He made sure that he discarded this label in game 5 himself. Because James Harden could not be relied upon that evening, the beard is currently playing without a throwing rhythm. “Never mind,” Paul thought and showed himself the best game of his playoff career.

He was the leader on the field, he was the one who initiated almost every attack. The more the game progressed, the more responsibility CP3 assumed – in the end he had a usage rate of 32.5 percent behind his name. Harden was the one who spaced the ball. That’s all the beard had to do, and he was a good fit for the role.

41 points, 10 assists, 7 rebounds and abnormal throwing odds (13/22 FG, 8/10 3FG – career high) were one thing for Paul. The much more decisive number, however, was a 0 – and this was in the boxing score among the ball losses. This has never happened with such a statline since turnovers were recorded. Not in the regular season and certainly not in the playoffs.

“That was incredible,” Harden said in astonishment. “He went out there and took over the whole game. He took us on his back and said, “I’ll handle it.”

And as befits a leader, he was there when he was most needed. Because the Jazz were rebellious, didn’t let themselves be shaken off, took every setback away and sniffed at the lead. For example, when they reached a point 4’34” ahead of time, Paul hit his jumpers from different spots in four consecutive posessions. Among them was an incredible Fadeaway triple with a 24-second buzzer and a board-dagger. Such litters are only taken by someone who knows that he is “in the zone”.

From his 41 points Paul scored 20 in the last quarter, in which he stood the full twelve minutes (again: 0 ball losses!) on the parquet. To 6 more points he delivered the assists. He was directly involved in the last 18 points of his team. He dissected the defense in a way that only a floor general does: depending on the opponent, he played at the tempo, spread drives or took stepback threesomes after waving his team mates away for isolation.

He also had the classical pick-and-roll in his repertoire. And with whichever variant the Jazz opposed it, he had the answer. At the beginning of the game, he found the lurking shooters on the ball away side with demanding passes, in the second half he then preferred to seek the conclusion himself. When it was clear that the Rockets would win this game, it echoed loudly “CP3! CP3! calls through the Toyota Center, whose visitors are normally considered to be behavior, and at most make the beard happy with personal songs.

It was by no means Paul’s first outstanding game in the Rockets jersey. “When you look at his games, you see that he’s always amazing – not just today,” head coach Mike D’Antoni explained the situation. And it’s true: Paul, who recently turned 33, plays an outstanding season.

The fact that in case of doubt he queues behind Harden when he plays in normal form is by no means to be seen as negative, on the contrary. Paul has probably never had more “reserves in his tank” in the playoffs than this season, and Houston can only profit from that.

If Paul’s roll is like that night, his offensive play is almost complete. He may not be the most explosive point guard of the current generation – but the ability to detect weak points in the opponent’s defense and initiate the appropriate play (whether with him as ball leader is secondary) is second to none. LeBron James is probably the only player who can keep up with the Point God in this respect.

By the way, Paul doesn’t spare himself in the defense, not even against jazz. Harden may have been Mitchell’s primary defender, but when things got hot, Paul would go after the rookie himself. In 20 percent of Paul’s defensive posessions, there was a direct duel with Mitchell, whose efficiency went down in these phases.

Paul is on a mission in the 2018 playoffs – and that goes far beyond finally making it to the conference finals (by the way, in most cases it wasn’t his fault that he had to wait that long). “Who plays for such a thing?” he asked after his gala at ESPN. “There are eight games left to win. So we still have a lot of work to do.”

And in the form of the Golden State Warriors, who last lost a playoff series in the West in 2014. At that time it was about seven games against the Los Angeles Cippers – about leader Chris Paul. The Point God is ready for the next round.