featured-image

Strong Road Trip Continues With 104-98 Win Over Pistons

Rowan Kavner

DETROIT, Mich. – Chris Paul’s 14 third-quarter points kept the Clippers close. Jamal Crawford’s 14 fourth-quarter points put the game away.

Paul finished with 23 points and seven assists, while Crawford had 25 points and four assists to help the Clippers (9-4) finish off a 104-98 win against the Pistons (3-12) that featured multiple runs for both teams.

“I told the guys before the game, winning a game in the NBA is hard,” said head coach Doc Rivers. “It doesn’t matter what the team’s record is. They want to win, they’re professionals, they want to break their streak, and it’s going to be hard. I said if you guys don’t embrace that, we’re going to lose the game.”

They must have embraced it.

The Clippers went on runs of 9-2 and 15-3 in the first half, while the Pistons went on separate first-half runs of 14-1, 10-2 and 9-2. It amounted to a 51-48 halftime deficit for the Clippers that stayed within four points throughout the third quarter, thanks to Paul’s offense.

A 58-54 lead for the Pistons got knotted up at 58 after two buckets from Paul in the third quarter. Paul hit a 3-pointer to put the Clippers ahead and kept going, completing a three-point play and two more field goals before the quarter ended.

But the Clippers still trailed by a point entering the fourth quarter. Then the Clippers began another streak, starting the fourth on a 16-6 run.

“Tonight was one of those games where it’s like, just find a way to win,” Paul said. “A week from now it’s just going to say win or loss. That team fought hard, hit some big shots.”

The Pistons came storming back, but a 3-pointer from Paul and a block and 3-pointer from Crawford in the final minutes gave the Clippers a 10-point lead with less than a minute left.

“I think it’s good for us,” Crawford said. “It’s a game that in the past we may have lost, a game that wasn’t pretty, we couldn’t get over the hump, couldn’t really break through until the fourth quarter. Games past, that may have been a loss.”

That would be enough against a Pistons team that’s now lost six straight and has dropped all five games they’ve allowed at least 100 points. This is also the seventh straight win for the Clippers against the Pistons.

The victory pushed the Clippers to 4-1 so far on a seven-game road trip. It wasn’t always pretty, as Rivers called some of the Clippers’ 15 turnovers “comical,” but he doesn’t always care how it looks when it results in a win away from home.

“We broke a lot of rules, we broke a lot of our discipline, but we pulled it out,” Rivers said. “On the road, like I said, you’ve just got to find ways to win. It doesn’t matter how they look. They’ve played five on the road on this trip and won four. That constitutes a really good trip so far.”

NOTES

This marked the sixth straight win for the Clippers when scoring 100 points…The Clippers are 8-1 when accomplishing the feat… Blake Griffin finished three assists and three rebounds short of a triple-double… The Clippers went 18-of-19 from the free-throw line…The Clippers will continue the road trip in Houston.

RELATED CONTENT