{"id":38864,"date":"2014-05-05T12:00:46","date_gmt":"2014-05-05T19:00:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/?p=38864"},"modified":"2017-06-10T11:06:48","modified_gmt":"2017-06-10T18:06:48","slug":"the-peterson-principle-5514","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/?p=38864","title":{"rendered":"The Peterson Principle: 5\/5\/14"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Tim<\/a>

Tim Peterson<\/p><\/div>\n

The Lakers were nowhere to be seen. And although I\u2019m not ready to abandon the Laker ship anytime soon (a fan for 40 years) I have to admire what the Clippers have accomplished.<\/p>\n

To beat the Warriors after everything that has gone on in the past week showed something that is rarely seen in Clipper teams. They could have wilted under the bright lights and pressure of a national story that was suddenly thrust upon them, but instead they embraced it and survived.<\/p>\n

They lost game four after owner Donald Sterling\u2019s racist comments were made public, but rebounded to win game five, lose game six by one and then win game seven. Whether you like the Clippers or not, whether you agree with Commissioner Adam Silver\u2019s decision or not, it\u2019s hard not to appreciate the toughness that the Clips displayed in dispatching Golden State.<\/p>\n

If Doc Rivers wasn\u2019t recognized as one of the best coaches in the game before he certainly is now. He summed it up best after the grueling win in the seventh game.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just thought this team really needed the game. I just really wanted us to win. I just thought with all this stuff, this team just needed a win,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Blake Griffin has had the best year of his career. Clipper fans have been waiting for Griffin to put it all together, to see all of that potential come to fruition. This was that year. But make no mistake, Chris Paul is the MVP of this team.<\/p>\n

Speaking of the Lakers, in case you didn\u2019t hear, Mike D\u2019Antoni resigned last week. What should the Lakers do? Get Rivers at all costs. Isn\u2019t he the coach of the Clippers you ask? Well yes. For now. But he won\u2019t work for Sterling next year and the truth is Sterling will still be the owner. He was banned for life but he won\u2019t sell, even if the owners vote that he has to. Sterling will fight this until the day he dies. The legal battles could drag on for years.<\/p>\n

Rivers won\u2019t want to be a part of that process and all he would have to do is move across the hall. It\u2019s a perfect fit. It would be the best move Jim Buss has ever made. Buss has botched the last two coaching moves, hopefully he doesn\u2019t strike out.<\/p>\n

Yes the Clippers series was great, but can you ever remember the NBA playoffs being this good on the whole? Five first round series have gone seven games and three games in one series, Portland- Houston, went to overtime. Oklahoma, despite struggling to beat Dallas, still looks like the team to beat in the West, while there doesn\u2019t seem to be a team in the East that can beat Miami.<\/p>\n

Can anybody beat the Heat? I don\u2019t now but isn\u2019t it funny that after all of the troubles, turmoil and trials that Indiana has endured over the last month, the Pacers still advanced to the second round?<\/p>\n

That\u2019s my principle.<\/p>\n

Tim can be reached at tim@midvalleysports.com<\/a> or on Twitter @tspeterson40.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Lakers were nowhere to be seen. And although I\u2019m not ready to abandon the Laker ship anytime soon (a fan for 40 years) I have to admire what the Clippers have accomplished.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,12817],"tags":[9590,190,5187,7975,9589,7561,9588,7948,7946,6583,7974,8082,7806,7140,9591,7805,8737],"class_list":["post-38864","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fanview","category-petersonprince","tag-adam-silver","tag-blake-griffin","tag-chris-paul","tag-dallas-mavericks","tag-doc-rivers","tag-donald-sterling","tag-golden-satte-warriors","tag-houston-rockets","tag-indiana-pacers","tag-jim-buss","tag-la-clippers","tag-la-lakers","tag-miami-heat","tag-mike-dantoni","tag-nba-playoffs","tag-oklahoma-city-thunder","tag-portland-trailblazers"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38864","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=38864"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38864\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38865,"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38864\/revisions\/38865"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=38864"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=38864"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/midvalleysports.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=38864"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}