Clippers guard Jamal Crawford finishes finishes third in Sixth Man of Year voting
Jamal Crawford didn't win his bid for a second consecutive Sixth Man of the Year award in the NBA. That honor went to Toronto Raptors guard Lou Williams on Monday.
Crawford, 34, won the award last year for the Clippers (and his second Sixth Man win overall) and was looking to win for a second consecutive time but his late-season deep calf contusion -- which caused him to miss five weeks and return with just four regular season games remaining -- surely derailed that bid.
Williams had 33 first-place votes, while Crawford had eight.
Doc Rivers, who was busy Tuesday going over film of the Clippers Game 1 victory over the Spurs one day earlier, hadn't heard who won the award.
"I'm clueless. The award came out already? I'm clueless. Who won? Oh, OK. If you had asked me a sixth man I couldn't tell you. When you say it, Lou Williams, that makes sense to me. I don't know if there's a better one in the league than Jamal. I'm sure there's a bunch of them. I just don't know other teams. When you're injured, you're not going to win an award. I think we all know that."
#Clippers' success started with CP3 in Game 1 win over defending champ #Spurs,via @jillpainter http://t.co/Z4IWcH9aqA pic.twitter.com/8JQo6GfIUl
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The good news for Crawford is that he found his shooting touch and got his rhythm back again on Sunday, his fifth game back from injury. He scored 17 points on 7 of 10 shots, and was the game's fourth-leading scorer behind Chris Paul, Blake Griffin and the Spurs' Kawhi Leonard.
Crawford averaged 15.8 points per game off the bench during the regular season.
The Clippers continually said they needed Crawford come playoffs, and Crawford provided that spark of the bench as he had done most of the season.
