Should The L.A. Clippers Be Concerned About Hack-a-DJ?
DeAndre Jordan has been an invaluable part of the Los Angeles Clippers’ run to the playoffs.
A defensive stopper, a freak of athleticism, and a beast on the glass, Jordan — along with Blake Griffin — is a breath of low-block fresh air on a team that features a wealth of perimeter orientation.
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Jordan’s value doesn’t come without a downside however, as he shot 39.7 percent from the free-throw line in the regular season — good for second-worst in the league, trailing only Andre Drummond.
Many teams elected to employ the “Hack-a-Shaq” strategy when playing the Clippers in the regular season. A strategy that involves the opposing team intentionally fouling a poor free-throw shooter, sending him to the line as opposed to allowing his team to run their offense. This is a strategy that’s been used countless times, on countless terrible free-throw shooters — many of whom were dominant low-post big-men.
The strategy is named after the illustrious center Shaquille O’Neal, who was a career 52.7 percent free-throw shooter.
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One of the tactic’s biggest fans is San Antonio Spurs head coach Gregg Popovich, who has never been shy about using it.
Seeing as his Spurs are squaring off with the Clippers in this year’s playoffs, many predicted a wealth of DeAndre Jordan hacking from Popovich — he hasn’t disappointed.
In game one of the series, Jordan shot 12 free-throws, making five of them. In game two, he went to the line 17 times making six.
While seeing one man shoot that many free-throws makes for some exceptionally boring TV broadcasts, it actually hasn’t hurt the Clippers as much as many might think. Dating back to 2013, L.A. is 15-3 when Jordan goes to the line at least 12 times and 12-1 when he attempts at least 14 free-throws.
Though the stats somewhat conflict each other, it’s certainly hard to argue with wins.
That’s just it though, will this charade keep the Clippers from winning this post-season? So far we’ve had mixed results.
In the Clippers’ game one victory, as I pointed out before, Jordan was hacked. The Clips came out on top 107-92.
San Antonio would take game two in overtime 111-107. Yes they lost the game, but Jordan’s frequent and inept foul-shooting didn’t really seem to be what killed the Clippers.
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On the flip-side, Jordan took exactly zero free-throws in game three, which was a 100-73 beat-down of the Clippers. While clearly there was no need for hacking of any kind in that game on San Antonio’s part, Jordan not going to the line at all didn’t seem to help L.A. one bit. Granted, when your starting back-court goes a combined five-of-18 from the field, and Blake Griffin — who led the team in scoring in game three — goes 6-of-15 with 14 points, it’s going to be hard to win regardless of Jordan’s play.
Through three games, it seems we simply have not seen enough to know whether or not Jordan’s woes at the line are hurting L.A.’s chances at a title. Should we see any more of “Hack-a-DJ”, maybe we can draw conclusions then, but for now, we’ll leave it up to a few more DeAndre Jordan free-throw attempts to give us the answer. An answer we may not get this season, and seeing as NBA Commissioner Adam Silver told ESPN.com that the league will surely take a look at abolishing the strategy, we may never find out if DeAndre Jordan’s free-throws ever killed the Clippers.
For the enjoyment of all, here is one of the more entertaining Hack-a-Shaq’s we’ve seen.
The victim? The often-hacked legend himself: