J.J. Redick helped save the Clippers’ season

Just watching J.J. Redick play is exhausting. Your eyes dart from side to side as Redick speeds off one screen and then another, curling in what feels like an infinite loop. You start to feel like a cat chasing a laser pointer. Just when you lock onto his position on the TV screen, he moves somewhere else.

Imagine how exhausting it must then feel to guard J.J. Redick. Few players can because Redick is that quick and refined as he moves around. Much is made about how the best ball-handlers fool opponents by changing speeds with the ball. Redick does that when he doesn’t have the ball.

You’ve probably heard that Redick is on one hell of a hot streak this season. The 31-year-old shooting guard is hitting 48 percent of his threes and only the great Stephen Curry has a higher true shooting percentage in the entire league. He’s gobbled up many of Blake Griffin’s missing shots and spat out a significantly higher conversion rate than he’s ever generated in a smaller offensive role.

Yet Redick is a Film Room All-Star because of what happens before and after he actually touches the ball. Teams understandably don’t want to give him an inch of space, but manage to do so anyway because he’s so well-drilled and never gives his defender a moment to rest. It’s common to see Redick start a Clippers set on one side of the court, run through at least one screen to the other side and then run through another to return to the same side he started.

Once Redick’s defender inevitably loses him, teams have to bring help or risk a scoring barrage from deep. That means someone else is open, and Redick can find them directly or indirectly. Years of running off screens have sharpened Redick’s passing reads to the point where they’re automatic. When he doesn’t shoot, his movement is the first action that stretches a defense’s shape. It’s only a matter of time before the defense is spread too far.

Paul Pierce’s crafty pump fake and Luc Richard Mbah a Moute’s timely cut directly caused that basket, but neither is possible without Redick running Allen Crabbe ragged. Almost every other guard in the league stops once the first curl is cut off. Redick has the creativity, technique and stamina to immediately veer back the other way and draw Pierce’s defender to him. Because Redick made that extra cut, a possession that dies for most teams ends with a layup for the Clippers.

This is why Redick -- not Chris Paul, not Blake Griffin, not DeAndre Jordan -- has the biggest effect on the Clippers offense. When Redick is in the game, the Clippers score 112.5 points per 100 possessions, post a collective effective field goal percentage near 55 percent and generate assists on nearly 64 percent of their hoops. When Redick sits, the Clippers score 99.2 points per 100 possessions, shoot an effective field goal percentage of less than 49 percent and general assists on only 53.3 percent of their baskets. Their offense flows beautifully when he’s in the game and doesn’t flow at all when he’s not.

Redick plays the lion’s share of his minutes with Paul and Jordan, so it can be tough to separate his individual impact from theirs. Would Redick’s style be as effective if he was the top offensive option on the Clippers’ shaky second unit? Maybe, maybe not.

But the point is that the Clippers offense succeeds because of a three-headed monster (four-headed if Griffin is healthy). Redick, despite playing fewer minutes and receiving far few accolades, is one of those three heads. He matters that much.