Smooth Performance of the Night: Chris Paul becomes 'the scorpion'

Despite being one of the best scoring point guards in basketball, capable of finishing at the rim, getting to the line or hitting from outside, Chris Paul often takes a backseat in the points column in order to get his teammates involved in the offense.

That's not a fault - Paul has led the league in assists per game in consecutive seasons and four times in his career, and it's his leadership that had his Los Angeles Clippers ranked as the league's best offense in the regular season. He averaged 19.1 points and 10.2 assists, and L.A. scored 118.3 points per-100 possessions with him on the floor, a ludicrous amount.

But on Sunday, with the home-court edge in their first-round playoff series against the San Antonio Spurs on the line, the Clippers needed Paul to score, not distribute.

Score Paul did, pouring in 34 points on 11-of-19 shooting with a 10-of-10 mark from the free-throw line, including 10 points in the game's final six minutes. He added three rebounds and seven assists in lifting the Clippers to a 114-105, series-tying victory that will see the team return home to L.A. in a 2-2 lock and home-court advantage over the final three games.

After the game, head coach Doc Rivers employed an odd choice of fable to describe Paul, the facilitator and Paul, the scorer:

He's a great scorer. I mean, he's not a good scorer. He's a great scorer. And to tell him that and convince him that, (he'll say), "Yeah, I know. I know." But he doesn't see that. He sees himself as a great passer, and it's a (expletive) to get him to do it. ... It's just his nature. It's (like the fable) "The Frog and the Scorpion." And we need him to be the scorpion.

The analogy doesn't make a great deal of sense if Rivers is implying that Paul is normally the frog, and also because either animal is doomed in the fable.

In any case, Paul very much became the scorpion on Sunday, and it has the Clippers in an enviable position as the series heads back to Staples Center.