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There’s no denying that the first two games of the Clippers-Jazz Western Conference semifinal — both won by Utah — were highly competitive, exciting affairs. Both featured strong starts by the home team Jazz, numerous runs from each squad and lead changes well into the fourth quarter. Utah’s Donovan Mitchell was mostly unstoppable, and the Clippers got crucial buckets from Reggie Jackson and Luke Kennard.
But for those fans hoping to see fireworks between Joe Ingles and Paul George, something akin to their 2018 playoff antics when George was with Oklahoma City and the two forwards went at each other like rambunctious, oversized teenagers, the series has been a disappointment. Even with Ingles getting additional minutes because of an injury to Jazz starting point guard Mike Conley, there’s been very little extracurricular activity between him and George, a rivalry that Ingles sees as yesterday’s news.
“The whole narrative of like Joe versus Paul George is a little bit old in my mind,” said Ingles prior to Game 2. “It’s the Jazz versus the Clippers, it was OKC versus the Jazz.” Not to mention, a lot has changed for Ingles in the last few years.
“I personally don’t read into the one-on-one stuff. I mean three years ago is a long time. My twins were barely talking and now they’re five and annoy the hell out of me. Three years is a long time.”
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Ingles Refrains From Tactics — for Now
Perhaps part of the reason Ingles has yet to unleash his vast repertoire of trolling tactics is that he hasn’t had to. George has more or less struggled all on his own.
In Game 1, the 11-year veteran went 4-for-17 from the field and 3-for-8 from three, including going 0-for-5 in the first quarter when the Clippers didn’t fully drop the hammer on an ice-cold Jazz team who missed 20 straight shots. George also put up a goose egg (0-for-3) from the floor in the third quarter, when the Jazz erased a 13-point first-half deficit. His two assists constituted his lowest game total since the playoffs began.
Ingles, for his part, didn’t shoot much better in Game 1, going 3-for-12 overall and 1-for-8 from three. However, he did add seven assists in the win, and there’s no question that the Clippers rely more on George to play well than the Jazz do Ingles, who started 30 games this season. It’s why Ingles, with or without the antics, understands how important it is to keep George under wraps.
“It’s a matchup that I want to try and hold him as much as I can,” said Ingles. “He’s obviously a highly impactful player for the team — he has the ball, he gets shots within their offense. So I obviously realize he’s heavily involved and for me or for Royce (O’Neale) or Bojan (Bogdanovic) or whoever’s guarding him, Donovan at some points, it’s just to make it as tough as we can on him and Kawhi (Leonard).”
Both guys had much better outings in Game 2 — with George scoring 27 and coming within four assists of triple-double and Ingles dropping in 19 on 7-for-10 shooting, including a step-back three on George to give the Jazz a 10-point lead late in the fourth quarter. But Ingles is not judging his performance on how well George does or doesn’t do.
“There’s no individual battles or one on one matchups,” continued Ingles. “There’s 10 guys on the court and obviously we’ve got to defend as a team and that’s what we’ve done all year.”
Old Habits Die Hard
To be sure, while Ingles and George have yet to mix it up as they did in 2018, this series hasn’t exactly been a tea party. Clippers forward Marcus Morris was assessed a technical foul within three minutes of Game 1 after getting in the face of Bojan Bogdanovic. In Game 2, centers Rudy Gobert and DeMarcus Cousins exchanged shoves and words in the first half, and Ingles was given a Flagrant 1 foul in the fourth after knocking Beverley to the floor with an elbow — a play that was initially whistled as a foul on Beverley before being overturned upon replay review.
And even though Ingles is more or less keeping it mature when it comes to George, old habits — especially ones honed over seven years in the NBA and several years overseas before that — die hard.
Late in the third quarter of Game 2, with the Clippers down seven, George drove to the basket and exaggerated the impact from O’Neale who bumped him at the top of the key. George did not get the call and instead committed a turnover as he fell awkwardly to the ground a moment later. As George sat up and pleaded his case to the ref, Ingles, who was nearby, spread his arms and mocked George’s reaction to the bump.
It was a benign incident and George didn’t even seem to notice, but it was a taste of what some Jazz fans have been hoping to see.
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