Clippers clearly believe Doc Rivers was the problem last season

The Red Wedding.

For “Game of Thrones” fans, the Season 3 finale, in which the entire Northern army and its leadership is murdered at a wedding reception, is considered among the series’ best. One of the reasons why? Television audiences are accustomed to the “good guys” surviving these sort of clashes. At least some of them. But nope, not here. Not women, not children, not even the dog.

The Red Wedding from “The Rains of Castamere” episode has become cultural shorthand for a mass cleansing.

The Detroit Lions went red wedding on Saturday when they fired head coach Matt Patricia and general manager Bob Quinn. Los Angeles was a VIP guest in 2017, when the Lakers co-owner Jeanie Buss relieved her brother Jim Buss and longtime GM Mitch Kupchak of their duties, and the Kings eliminated coach Darryl Sutter and GM Dean Lombardi. The organizational slaughter was not restricted to the C-suite and the voices that embodied the old ways, but to the roster as well.

This offseason the Clippers were expected to stage their own ceremonial departure from the past. After coughing up a 3-1 series lead to the Denver Nuggets, and failing to advance to the Western Conference finals for the 50th straight year, the belief among former players, executives and reporters with whom I spoke was that the firing of coach Doc Rivers was just the start. That everyone except Kawhi Leonard was on the trading block — including Paul George, Leonard’s running mate of choice if not, reportedly, The Claw’s first choice. Or even his second.

The point is, the Clippers’ collapse was about a flawed roster construction. Even with two of the NBA’s top 15 players, the Clippers lacked vocal leadership on the floor and were in desperate need of a starting point guard. Chris Paul, Russell Westbrook and Rajon Rondo were all floated as possible solutions but after a weeklong free agency frenzy, Paul, Westbrook and Rondo are all playing elsewhere.

In fact, the roster pretty much looks the way it did against the Nuggets in Game 7, with the not insignificant swap-out of Montrezl Harrell for Serge Ibaka the notable exception. Not only that, the executive leadership remains intact.

The message is crystal clear: Owner Steve Ballmer believes the abrupt, ignominious end squarely falls on Doc.

Considering the popularity and track record of Rivers, Ballmer’s decision — more sniper than Red Wedding — was still shocking. Rivers certainly made some questionable moves — most egregiously, his loyalty to Harrell in the Denver series despite how awful the Clippers were defensively and offensively with Trez on the floor — but those weren’t Rivers’ three-point attempts hitting nothing but the side of the backboard. According to Second Spectrum Tracking, “Playoff P” and the gang got higher quality shots in Games 5-7 than they did Games 1-4, when Los Angeles went up three games to one. Rivers’ offense got them the good looks, the players didn’t knock…