Clippers Go Cold Late In 89-85 Loss To Spurs

Rowan Kavner

LOS ANGELES – Chris Paul finished one assist short of a triple-double and one bucket away from sending the Spurs to overtime Monday night.

The Clippers led the whole way until the last two minutes, when the only lead change of the game occurred as the Spurs took an 83-82 lead and ultimately held on, 89-85, as a drive through the lane by Paul rimmed out. Paul, who told head coach Doc Rivers he wanted the ball, missed on a play Rivers would take all day.

“We emptied the back side out, so if it wasn’t there, Blake (Griffin) would have been rolling down the middle,” Rivers said. “They would have had to make a choice. They made the choice to take that away, and that’s why Chris got to the paint. He’ll take that shot all day. He just didn’t make it. But, to me, when you have so many empty possessions before that, then the big one doesn’t go your way sometimes.”

The Clippers held the Spurs to just 39.8 percent shooting from the field and a 2-for-19 mark from deep but couldn’t close out the reigning champions. Paul finished with 12 points, 10 rebounds and nine assists in the loss, watching an 82-75 lead with 5:48 remaining in the fourth quarter evaporate.

That was a result of missed shots and turnovers.

“They basically gave us a clinic down the stretch on how to close out a game,” Paul said. “The tough part about it was our turnovers. That was very uncharacteristic of us turning over the ball like we did, and they converted.”

Jamal Crawford’s three free throws were the only points scored by the Clippers in the last five and a half minutes of the game. The Clippers missed seven shots during that time and turned the ball over four times in the final two minutes of the game.

The Spurs trailed in practically every category but turned the ball over just eight times compared to the Clippers’ 17 turnovers. According to forward Blake Griffin, that was the difference in the game.

“Bad turnovers in a critical time, we’ve got to be better with the ball,” Griffin said. “But with all that, we still had a chance. At the end of the day, we still had a chance to tie it up and force overtime.”

Crawford’s three free throws late and Manu Ginobili’s two missed free throws gave the Clippers the chance to tie on Paul’s drive that went just long, as the Clippers fell short in a defensive battle after leading for 46 minutes of the game.

Following Paul’s miss with just seconds remaining, Griffin grabbed the rebound and fell to the ground. The Clippers then tried to take a timeout they didn’t have, resulting in a technical foul. That last sequence didn’t bother Rivers as much as the previous six minutes of the fourth quarter.

“We had some pretty bad turnovers down the stretch of the game,” Rivers said. “It was more the last four to five minutes of the game, but I actually thought it was throughout. We had so many opportunities in transition to score and we kept coming up empty.”

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