The postseason did not go well for the Clippers as a whole, but perhaps no single player was as loudly pilloried as Montrezl Harrell. After an outstanding regular-season campaign that saw him win Sixth Man of the Year, Harrell was a shell of himself in the playoffs, and for good reason.
The loss of his grandmother clearly had an enormous impact on Harrell’s psyche, one that he acknowledged multiple times over the course of the postseason. Secondly, being with his grandmother in her final days left Harrell out of all of the seeding games, forcing to play his first meaningful basketball in the first round of the playoffs.