Portland defends 'Hack a DJ' strategy in 115-95 Game 1 loss to Clippers

The tone sounded more and more agitated, even on a night when seemingly everything went right.

Blake Griffin soared. Chris Paul scored and defended. And the Clippers secured a 115-95 Game 1 victory over the Portland Trail Blazers on Sunday at Staples Center.

Yet, Clippers analyst Don MacLean still sounded irritated over something else. Amid Portland intentionally fouling DeAndre Jordan while the outcome seemed inevitable, MacLean said on the Prime Ticket postgame show someone needs to go foul Terry Stotts.”

“As long as he’s in there, it’s something you have to employ,” the Portland coach said of the intentional fouling strategy. “I know it’s not necessarily pretty. But you’ve got to do whatever you can to try to extend the game and win the game.”

The tactic sure extended the game all right. With the Clippers leading 98-79 with 5:13 left in the game, Portland’s Chris Kaman, CJ McCollum, Gerald Henderson, Allen Crabbe and Damian Lillard intentionally fouled Jordan a combined eight times in the next two minutes. Those minutes seemingly felt like hours.

The strategy hardly helped the Blazers win the game, though. Despite Jordan going 6 of 12 from the foul line during that time, the Clippers held a 105-85 lead when Jordan went to the bench with 2:55 left.

“It was fine. My teammates give me confidence when I’m up there, and I’m comfortable up there,” Jordan said. “I make both, miss both, whatever it is, we’re going to come down and try to get a stop. When we get stops, the strategy doesn’t really work as much.”

The Clippers actually did not get a lot of stops.

While Portland spent its time on defense fouling Jordan, the Clippers spent their time on defense allowing the Blazers to make two of four field goals. But the Clippers still maintain a large cushion partly because they grabbed five offensive rebounds after every time Jordan missed his second free-throw attempt.

All of which begged the question: Why did the Trail Blazers adopt such a strategy as they faced such a sizable lead with so little time to cut it?

“I don’t know what the optimal time is. I’m not a coach. I just do what I’m told,” Kaman said. “That’s another hard thing. The players get so upset about it on the other team. But it’s not my choice. I’d do it, though, if I was a choice. It would have to be strategic.”

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It appeared Portland would be more strategic using the so-called “Hack a DJ” rule earlier in the game.

Jordan airballed a foul shot only 35 seconds into the game. The Trail Blazers then started intentionally fouling Jordan with 40.8 seconds left in the first quarter. But with Clippers coach Doc Rivers yanking Jordan three seconds later, Portland stopped the strategy altogether. That is until Kaman was told to foul Jordan with 5:13 left in the game.

“Everyone does it,” Rivers said. “It’s better to do it when you’re ahead than behind. That’s actually been proven. But when you’re down, you might as well. So I didn’t see any problem with it.”

Rivers is right.

According to USA Today, NBA data shows that teams have won substantially more games when they intentionally fouled to protect a lead instead of to slice a deficit. Yet, the same data reported more teams adopt the tactic when they are trailing in a game.

That partly explains why NBA Commissioner Adam Silver has reconsidered his stance on the rule. He initially defended the Board of Goveors’ decision last summer to keep to rule so it would not protect poor foul shooters. Yet, Silver has sounded open toward tweaking the rule amid conces that increasingly exploited loopholes could hurt the game’s entertainment value.

“I hope they don’t change the rule,” Kaman said. “If they do, that’ll be a joke. DeAndre just needs to work on his free throws. That’s the bottom line. If the NBA changes the rule, they’re going to reward guys for being bad free throw shooters. They shouldn’t do that. It should be part of basketball. If you can make free throws at a decent rate, people aren’t going to foul you.”

Jordan has not shot free throws this season at a decent rate. He has shot 43 percent from the foul line this season, which actually marks a modest increase from the 39.7 percent clip he averaged in the 2014-15 season.

Nonetheless, the Clippers have gone 17-11 in games Jordan shot at least 10 foul shots, including two regular-season wins against Portland. The Clippers pulled that off despite Jordan’s poor free-throw shooting on Nov. 30, 2015 (12 of 34) and on March 24, 2016 (6 of 16).

Still. Kaman still argued the NBA should allow teams to foul players away from the ball in the final two minutes. As Kaman argued, “If you’re going to leave a guy on the floor that is a bad free throw shooter, that’s your choice.””

“A lot of teams have done it to their success,” Kaman said. “I just keep hearing they’re going to change the rule. That’s insane. Guys need to work on their free throws and take more time and effort to get better at that.”

Jordan did not get much better with his foul shooting in Game 1. But it did not matter. The Clippers still won.