Los Angeles Clippers point guard Pablo Prigioni only played 15 minutes in Wednesday’s 104-90 win over the Miami Heat, but he made each of those minutes count by recording not one, not two, not three, but eight steals. Every so often, a player comes off the bench and records a big game, but those performances obviously come in bursts. If a player gets 10-15 minutes a game — Prigioni, for the record, averages 14.1 minutes a game this season — they might go 80 percent or 90 percent from the field or hit three or four big three-pointers. Prigioni was masterful with his defense. He got steals on inbounds plays, in transition, under the rim. He was everywhere. And at 38, the guy looked ageless.
His production was also huge for the Clippers in that they were given more opportunities to get points. As Eric Freeman of Ball Don’t Lie noted, “Those eight steals represented one-third of the Heat’s 24 total turnovers, a high number for any game but especially relative to the Clippers’ seven. Despite shooting worse than Miami from the field (42.6 percent to 44.3 percent), the hosts managed nine more made field goals. They simply had more chances to score.”
Interestingly, the last player to come close to Prigioni’s numbers was his coach, Doc Rivers, when he played for the Clipps on Nov. 6, 1991. Against the Phoenix Suns that year, Rivers had nine steals in 18 minutes. So at least those two have something in common.
