SAN ANTONIO — It is a 2015 opening-round playoff series against the Los Angeles Clippers the San Antonio Spurs would like to forget.
But for former Clippers guard Jamal Crawford, it is the most memorable playoff series in his career.
Fresh off the team's 2014 title, the sixth-seeded Spurs were heading into the 2015 NBA postseason looking to defend their title and set to take on the third-sedded Clippers in the opening round.
However, the series did not pan out in San Antonio's favor.
The Clippers would defeat the Spurs in seven games where an injured Chris Paul would make a key layup in Los Angeles to seal the series.
And Crawford still smiles about being a part of the winning team but still shows his respect for how tough the Spurs were to face.
"It was the series against the San Antonio Spurs in 2015. They were so detailed in everything," he said to NBA.com. "Every mistake you made they made you pay for. They just won the championship the year before and I remember talking to Zach Randolph towards the end of the season when the matchups were about to come out, and we were both like nobody wants to play San Antonio."
"We played them in the first round and had an epic series, beating them in seven games on a Chris Paul shot off the glass. And he was hurt! That was the toughest team I played against in the playoffs," he said.
To add more salt to the wound, the Clippers eliminating the Spurs in 2015 marked San Antonio as the first defending champions to be eliminated in the first round since the 2011–12 Dallas Mavericks.
It also was another time the Spurs did not defend their NBA title.
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