Add Marcus Morris to the list of current and former Los Angeles Clippers players who believe the team would have won the 2020 NBA title if they weren’t in the Bubble. On Run It Back, Morris stated that he and his teammates were not comfortable inside the Bubble.
“For sure, hands down,” Morris said. “We was the best team, we was the most connected team, top to bottom, starters to the guys coming off (the bench). We was perfect, man. I think that the Bubble, guys just got tired of being there. Tired of being not around their family, just being in an uncomfortable space, and it just affected us, right when we had our shot.”
Marcus Morris says the Clippers would have won the championship in 2020 if the bubble hadn't happened
(🎥 @RunItBackFDTV )
— NBACentral (@TheDunkCentral) May 24, 2024
The Clippers finished that 2019-20 season with a 49-23 record and were the second seed in the Western Conference. They were viewed as the favorites to win it all and a titanic clash with the 52-19 Los Angeles Lakers in the Conference Finals seemed almost inevitable as the playoffs began.
While the Lakers got there, the Clippers shockingly blew a 3-1 lead in the Conference Semifinals against the Denver Nuggets to lose in seven games. Morris and many others on that team believe they only lost because being in the Bubble had a very negative effect on them.
Would they have if it was a normal season not affected by COVID-19? I don’t think you can say that for sure, but that was certainly their best shot at winning the championship in the Kawhi Leonard-Paul George era. It was the only postseason run where both Leonard and George were healthy for the Clippers and they couldn’t get it done.
Lou Williams Claimed The Clippers Heard No One Would Respect The Bubble Championship
I spoke about other former Clippers players having the same belief as Morris and Lou Williams is one of them. Williams revealed why the Clippers stopped trying to win the 2020 Bubble Championship.
“It was a struggle to get us to the bubble from the beginning. We didn’t even want to go. So mentally, we came into it without the right mindset to finish the job. We didn’t even want to be there. I was in the bubble for 97 days and I think about Day 67 I was like, ‘Let’s get the f**k out of here’. Mentally, we weren’t in it for the long game. We didn’t see the pot of gold at the end of it. We started to hear the rumblings that nobody is going to respect this chip so we kind of just took our foot off the gas.”
With all due respect to Williams, that was just ridiculous. To say they started giving less effort because they heard no one was going to respect that title is absurd. If there was talk along those lines, the Lakers would have heard that too but it didn’t stop them from giving it their all and going on to win the championship.
Sure, today there is talk about that title needing an asterisk and whatnot, but guess what? It still counts and the Lakers have 17 championships as a result. The Clippers, meanwhile, have none and it doesn’t look like they’ll be winning one anytime soon.
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