Chris Paul finally exorcised his playoff demons, and he did it before a crowd that once cheered him on, not too long ago.
Behind a playoff career-high 41 points from the veteran floor general, the visiting Phoenix Suns beat up the Los Angeles Clippers, 130-103, in Game 6 of the West finals on Wednesday night, advancing to their first NBA Finals since 1993.
According to ESPN Stats & Info, Paul will play his first NBA Finals game in the 1,214th game of his career, which is the second-latest into a career of a player's first-ever Finals game. The 36-year-old also became the fourth player in history to score 40 points with zero turnovers in a Conference Finals game since turnovers became an official stat in 1977.
"I'm excited for him, happy for him," former NBA player Quentin Richardson told the Tiki and Tierney show on Thursday. "I know how long he's been at it. Playing hard, leading teams, and the injuries and all the things that he's been though in his career to get to this point. I'm extremely happy for him... Obviously, the first thing you think about is his great leadership ability, his ability to raise up all the players around him. But Chris is a killer, man.
"He has the killer instinct. He has that clutch gene that you want to have in a leader and a point guard. And in the last two years, he's shown how special he is. When he first went to OKC and everybody thought it was going to be one thing, and he had them looking like an entirely different team, to coming to Phoenix and doing what he's done in this short year. I mean, it's been nothing short of amazing."
Despite missing Games 1 and 2 of the series due to the league's health and safety protocols, and combining to shoot just 11-for-41 (27-percent) from the field in Games 3 and 4, Paul displayed his offensive prowess in the Suns' last two games. He scored a combined 63 points with 16 assists, and according to StatMuse, he's the oldest player in history to score 40-plus points in a closeout game.
Phoenix, which will face either the Milwaukee Bucks or Atlanta Hawks in the NBA Finals, is the first team in history to reach a Finals after a 10-season playoff drought. FiveThirtyEight.com currently projects that the Suns have a 73-percent chance of winning the title.
The entire NBA conversation between Richardson and Tiki and Tierney can be accessed in the audio player above.
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