Heading into Monday night’s matchup against the Clippers, all of the talk surrounding the game was around the stars. Los Angeles, who already had a three-headed monster of Hall-of-Famers in Kawhi Leonard, Paul George, and Russell Westbrook, was showing off it’s new weapon, James Harden, who was making his Clippers debut. And New York couldn’t shake the noise around it’s lone All-Star from last season, Julius Randle, and his historic struggles to begin the season.
Yet the game came down to, and was won by, the other guys, the players whose resumes and accolades pale in comparison to ones mentioned above.