I'm not sure what was more unbelievable: the Clippers' comeback or the guy who was the catalyst. Evans was everywhere defensively for L.A. as it bottled up Memphis in the final nine minutes and sandwiched the Clippers' shocking 26-1 run with layups. For the game he was plus-23 and had a game-high 13 rebounds in just 21 minutes.
What made this so stunning was that Evans is kind of terrible and, up until the final eight minutes, had continued to be. Just before the big run he'd committed traveling and three-second violations, and in a brief first-half stint he missed two foul shots and committed an offensive foul that gave Memphis the last shot of the first half (a Marc Gasol dunk at the buzzer that put the Griz up 19 at the break).
Then suddenly he changed the game with some help from Eric Bledsoe, Nick Young and Chris Paul. The Griz tried post-ups for Randolph, and Evans stuffed them. They tried pin-downs for Gay, and Evans switched out and snuffed them. They ran a pick-and-roll between Gasol and Mike Conley, and Evans was there to trap it. The Grizzlies ignored him on rolls to the basket, and he made them pay. He grabbed six rebounds in a span of 4:10.
Evans was super, basically. And heroes don't come more unlikely than this one. Evans' adjusted plus-minus this season was a phenomenally bad minus-16.34 points per 100 possessions, according to basketballvalue.com, and that was the worst in the league of any player who played at least 500 minutes. His seven points Sunday night exceeded the six he had scored the entire April entering the game, and he hadn't played more than 15 minutes in a game since March 15.