Rowan Kavner 
Digital Content Coordinator
LOS ANGELES – The Clippers dug out of their hole by going five-hole.
A chance to get out of a three-game losing skid came down to the final 1.1 seconds against the Trail Blazers, and Chris Paul, who was inbounding the ball, couldn’t even see his target.
“I don’t know how he got it to him,” said head coach Doc Rivers. “I really don’t. Obviously, he threw it between the legs, but that just tells you who Chris Paul is.”
The “he” in this case was Paul. The "him" in this case was J.J. Redick. And a lot happened in the buildup to the pass that went through Mason Plumlee's legs to find Redick.
After a stop at the other end in which the Clippers forced the ball out of the hands of Damian Lillard and C.J. McCollum, the Clippers inbounded the ball with a chance to win. Paul, who was passing it in, said the Trail Blazers switched Lillard off of him and put the 6-10 Plumlee on him to try to limit his line of sight.
For the most part, it worked.
“Plumlee started jumping, and I really couldn’t see J.J,” Paul said.
Before DeAndre Jordan set his screen on Redick, Jamal Crawford set one under the basket on Ed Davis to begin the inbounds play.
Davis stayed under the basket, and Crawford sprinted toward the sideline to give Paul another option. At this point, Paul’s still waiting for Redick and Jordan.
“Sometimes, teams will put a big on the inbounder, so we noticed that Plumlee came in the game,” Redick said. “We’d run this play before, but the play was for Jamal to screen DJ’s guy and DJ to screen my guy, but there wasn’t really anybody to screen for Jamal. DJ was just kind of naked.”
So Jordan, free to set his screen, picked C.J. McCollum, who was stuck to Redick at the time. The screen allowed Redick to shake free and go over the top – though Redick remembered differently, thinking he went under the screen with not much time to process what happened after the elation of his first NBA buzzer-beating game-winner.
“I was worried Chris was going to kind of throw it like I was going to go over the top, but I probably shouldn’t have worried,” Redick said. “Chris doesn’t panic, and he made a hell of a pass.”
As Redick freed himself, Paul’s looking for some sort of angle to hit Redick before the guard flies by.
Meanwhile, Plumlee had been jumping in the air and flailing his legs three separate times. On his last hop, Paul sees a gap between Plumlee’s legs, and he delivers the pass to Redick, who’s crossing the 3-point line.
“He kind of stayed patient enough to improvise,” Rivers said.
By the time Redick grabs the pass, which bounced perfectly into his chest, he has time to stop and elevate just inside the 3-point line with McCollum chasing and putting a hand up.
“I just tried to look behind J.J. to see if it was going in,” Paul said.
The Clippers’ point guard liked what he saw.
Redick’s shot was perfect, leaving Crawford sprinting across the court in excitement, Jordan with a hand up in celebration and Paul slapping hands with a fan and chest-bumping the man who hit the buzzer-beater.
If the play looked vaguely familiar, there’s a reason for that.
With some slight variations, Redick said the Clippers can run a couple different actions with it, reminding him of what the Clippers did Feb. 8 as he got free to send the game to overtime in Philadelphia.
On that play, Crawford inbounded the ball to Paul and circled around Jordan while Paul dribbled toward the corner. This gave Redick enough time to get around a Jordan screen at the top of the key and drill a game-tying 3-pointer with 10 seconds left.
When it comes to screens between Jordan and Redick, sometimes drawing up a play isn’t even necessary. That’s where years together pay off.
“Sometimes, during a game, it might just be a little eye contact,” Redick said. “No one else, even though it’s just two guys, know we’re doing that stuff. We always have that familiarity, and I do think that helped us on that last play, just in terms of DJ screening for me and Chris getting the ball to me in a place where I could get a good shot off.”
Rivers credited the key players on both sides for saving the game in the last six minutes of an otherwise messy night with both teams playing on the second game of a back-to-back.
For the Clippers, the final minute was no different, with the key cogs coming through.
Crawford hit two last-minute 3-pointers after the Clippers had just two as a team the first 47 minutes. One of those 3-pointers would’ve never been possible if not for an offensive rebound from Jordan, who delivered the key screen for the game-winner.
Paul delivered the pass and hit two clutch free throws to tie the game up in the final minute. And, of course, Redick finished off the win after the Clippers’ defense gave them a chance.
The result was nothing but jubilation for a Clippers team pulling itself out of a three-game skid and looking for confidence heading down the stretch of the regular season.
Crawford said those types of wins can catapult a team. Paul said food even tastes better.
“Everything’s a little bit better when you win,” Paul said. “We hadn’t seen what that felt like in a while.”