Paul has made the playoffs six times; he has led the league in postseason player efficiency rating in three of those six trips. His career playoff PER is 25.0. Here is the list of players who have logged at least 1,000 postseason minutes and exceeded that number: Michael Jordan, LeBron James, Shaquille O’Neal, Hakeem Olajuwon, George Mikan. That’s the list.
But PER is a surface stat that scans a player’s overall performance. No evaluation would end there. Paul’s best pre–Los Angeles team was the 2008 Hornets, a 56-win team that lost at home in Game 7 to the Spurs in the second round. That was the only close game of the series, and Paul put up 18 points, 14 assists, and eight rebounds before fouling out in the last seconds. He missed a layup with 45 seconds left that would have pulled the Hornets within three, but he also leaped between Ginobili and Tony Parker for an offensive rebound with about 1:30 left that he tipped right to Jannero Pargo for a triple that kept New Orleans alive.
Paul’s first-round series that season was a snoozer, but the final game was close, and Paul dispatched Dallas with a 24-15-11 triple-double that included an 11-point fourth quarter on 5-of-7 shooting.
He was hurt in the middle of the Denver series the next season, and when he got hurt again in 2010, the Hornets missed the playoffs. The next season, Paul averaged 22 points and 11.5 assists, hitting nearly 55 percent from the floor, in dragging a hopelessly undermanned Hornets team into a surprisingly competitive six-game series against the defending champion Lakers.
Injuries to Paul and his most important teammates have dotted his playoff career. Blake Griffin could barely play in the final two games of the Clippers’ first-round loss against Memphis two years ago due to a severe ankle sprain. Paul averaged 32 points per game on 22-of-40 shooting over the last two games of that series, but the Clippers without Griffin didn’t have enough to compete.
That series might have been over earlier had Paul not gone berserk in crunch time of Game 2, sinking 3-of-4 in the last 2:30, including a buzzer-beater to win the game.
That performance gave Memphis fans some nauseating flashbacks to the previous season, 2011-12, when Paul’s late-game play bordered on the implausible. He almost single-handedly won Game 4 of that first-rounder in overtime, slicing through for a layup with 26 seconds left in regulation to break a tie, and then raining fire with a 4-of-5 run of jumpers and leaners to clinch the game in overtime.
Paul has generally done well in big moments. He has outshot almost every superstar in crunch time, and he’s a tidy 18-of-36 in the last five minutes2 of playoff games in which the score has been within five points. He’s missed some big shots, and he’s suffered his fair share of boners; his turnover rate has spiked badly in several playoff seasons.
Guess what. This is exactly what you’d expect from a little guy who has supervised just about every important offensive possession for his team since the day he walked into the league. Paul has more hits than misses, and that’s rare for crunch time, when shooting percentages drop and even stars wilt under increased defensive attention.
What will it mean if the Clippers bow out early again this year? How will it affect Paul’s legacy?
Paul is objectively one of the 10 greatest point guards ever, a rare combination of historic passing, very good shooting, slicing attacks toward the rim, and elite defense at his position. He has no weaknesses, save perhaps his height, which can make it hard for him at times to see over the defenses and throw the cross-court passes that LeBron tosses with such ease.
The game provides truth. When you have truth, you don’t need narratives — including the one that says a player is somehow flawed until he wins a championship. Death to RINGZ.
http://grantland.com/the-triangle/death-to-ringz-chris-paul-and-the-nbas-broken-narrative-of-success/
. For example, many people would say "oh well the little guys can't create as well down the stretch", but then objectively, Paul has had great closing performances at the end of games and has even shot 50%, which means that there's something else OUTSIDE of him preventing his teams from winning (eg: team defense, team offense, just plain playing against superior teams).