LOS ANGELES -- Chris Paul couldn’t sleep the night before the biggest game of his career.
The Los Angeles Clippers point guard doesn’t usually sleep much as it is, so he watched old games on YouTube -- a late-night tradition of his -- before taking his son, Chris II, to his youth basketball game at 9:45 a.m. on Saturday.
On the drive home, Paul's son kept telling him that he had to win his game later on that night against the San Antonio Spurs.
Paul’s son will turn 6 years old next month. He wasn’t even born when Paul first faced the Spurs in the second round of the playoffs back in 2008 as a member of the New Orleans Hornets. Back then Paul was in his third season in the league. When the Spurs went on to beat the Hornets in Game 7 in New Orleans, Paul thought it was just a stepping stone to future success.
Fast forward to 2015 and Paul, now a married man with two children and four days away from his 30th birthday, is still standing on that same stepping stone.
He will routinely go back and rewatch games from that series in 2008 late at night. He jokingly has said it’s to see himself when he was more athletic, but talk to his family members and they’ll tell you it’s to nitpick plays that prevented him from getting to his first conference finals.
That is why Paul sat on the Clippers' bench late in the first quarter of Saturday’s Game 7 against the Spurs with tears in his eyes as he spoke to the team’s head athletic trainer, Jasen Powell, about his strained left hamstring. He buried his face in his hands and shook his head before finally heading back to the locker room.
Paul felt a pull in his left hamstring as he was dribbling the ball up the court and grabbed it just before hitting a 3-pointer to give the Clippers a 23-22 lead with 2:11 left in the first quarter before being taken out. After playing in all 82 games for the first time in his 10-year career, Paul’s body was seemingly giving up on him when he needed it most.
“There was a lot of things going through my head,” Paul said. “You think about all season long, I think about Blake [Griffin], D.J. [DeAndre Jordan], a lot of guys on our team, we do everything we can to prepare for a game. You get your rest, you train, you work out, you eat right, try to take care of your body, and I was just overcome with emotion because I was frustrated, because I was like, ‘All this time, all season long, and then Game 7 my body is going to let me down.’ That's what it was all about right there.”
Sitting on the baseline next to the Clippers' bench was Paul’s older brother, C.J., who was sitting courtside for his brother’s previous losses to the Spurs in the playoffs. As hurt as his brother was, he knew he would find a way to get back on the court.
“Someone asked me if I thought he was coming back and I said, ‘Yeah,'” C.J. Paul said. “I knew it meant too much to him. Game 7. He ain’t going out like that.”
Paul returned to the game midway through the second quarter but was clearly favoring his right leg as he limped, jogged and occasionally skipped down the court. He wasn’t himself but he was good enough to put up a game-high 27 points, including the game-winner with 1 second left on the clock that delivered a 111-109 win.
The shot was vintage Paul as he drove to the basket, screeched to a halt, sending Danny Green back a few steps. It was just enough space to allow him to get up a shot past the outstretched arms of Tim Duncan, who watched the ball bank off the top of the backboard and into the basket.
“He’s not fast,” C.J. Paul said. “But he’s going to get to his spots and if he gets to his spots, it’s done.”
It was a storybook ending to the signature game in Paul’s career and earned the Clippers their biggest win in franchise history, vaulting the team into the Western Conference semifinals to face the Houston Rockets, beginning Monday.
“I’m an emotional guy and I was crying with Chris,” J.J. Redick said. “This just adds to his legend. Twenty years from now I’ll be talking about this series and this game and that little guy and what heart he has.”
Before the game, Doc Rivers actually went through the play that would end up being the game-winner with Paul and Griffin after the team was done with their afternoon shootaround at the arena.
“You know, it's funny, it's crazy. When we finished walk-through today, when the team broke down, Doc called me and Blake over, and we talked about it,” Paul said. “We talked about if we get down into a last-second shot what we wanted to do. We've been in that situation a lot of times already this year, and most of the time I hadn't made it, to tell you the truth. We talked about it, and finally it worked when we needed it.”
Paul was in tears as he hugged Tim Duncan after the game. He has known Duncan since playing AAU basketball with Duncan’s nephew in North Carolina. He was 13 when Duncan, then an NBA rookie, became a mentor to him. Paul didn’t just beat the Spurs and the defending champions, he was finally able to get over the hump and beat the player he looked up to while growing up. The emotions of that moment poured out after the game.
“You know, those guys right there are legends. Seriously, from Pop [Gregg Popovich] to Tim to Tony [Parker] to Manu [Ginobli],” Paul said. “Like we've been saying all series, they're not going to beat themselves. Down the stretch our team has a thing that we say, what Doc said, 'Don't let go of the rope.' At any time we could have let go of the rope and just thought, it's these guys, we fought hard and we could have just conceded, but we kept fighting and guys made plays in order to win.”
Long after the game was over and the fans had left, Paul returned to the court to take a picture with his family. For a moment the pain his left hamstring seemed to go away.
“It’s hard to believe this was the first round,” Paul said. “But we’re not done now.”