The crazy, cruel summer of ’17 that changed the NBA’s future

The Clippers were on the brink yet jumped off the court with a Game 3 win that made the rollicking Staples Center crowd scream, sing and, yes, believe.

Just as we all predicted, the star of the first game in the head-to-head matchup between two of the leading candidates for the NBA’s Most Valuable Player award was … Patrick Beverley? With all eyes on high-scoring, playmaking All-Stars James Harden and Russell Westbrook, it was the hard-as-nails Chicago-born guard who helped tilt the game. Beverley rebounded from a bone-crunching screen by Oklahoma City Thunder center Steven Adams to ignite a monster third-quarter run that turned what had been a tight contest through two quarters into a blowout early in the fourth, as the Houston Rockets ran away with a 118-87 shellacking of the visiting Thunder to take a 1-0 lead in their best-of-seven first-round series.