Top 5 clutch playoff performances

With that in mind, I put together a list of the five greatest clutch playoff (and "un-clutch") performances since 1986. On paper, the premise is simple: Calculate a performance metric for every playoff game by a player over that span, see who raised or lowered his game the most versus his regular-season form, then weigh said changes by the importance of each game (see chart to right).

Some clutch performances that missed the cut: Isiah Thomas' play (43 points, eight assists) in Game 6 of the 1988 Finals was great, and the game itself was worth 4.33 times as much as an average playoff game. Robert Horry's 15 points were clutch in Game 7 of the 2005 Finals (9.01 leverage), Rashard Lewis unexpectedly had 34 points and 11 boards in Game 2 of the '09 Finals (3.49 leverage), Vernon Maxwell helped Houston win it all with 21 points in Game 7 of the '94 Finals (7.43 leverage) and Tim Duncan put up a terrific 32-point, 20-rebound stat line in Game 1 of the '03 Finals (3.41 leverage).

None of those, however, were good enough to crack the top 5.

Here are the games that were:

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Neil Paine

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• Writer, Basketball-Reference.com
• 2009 graduate of Georgia Tech