A little more than midway through the third quarter on Thursday night, everything was dandy around Staples Center. The Clippers had awakened from their first half slumber with a thunderous roar, and were in the process of running the Houston Rockets right out of the building. Blake Griffin had just converted a no-look, spinning, over-his-head, how-on-earth-did-he-do-that layup to give L.A. a commanding 86-68 lead, and the Clips looked well on their way to the first conference finals berth in the franchise's long, tortured history. This game wasn't going to be close!
No, in the end, this game wasn't going to be close. Almost as quickly as they'd gotten themselves on the road to a historic victory, the Clippers' wheels came flying off. The Rockets, once down by 19, used a brief surge from Terrence Jones and Dwight Howard to cut their deficit to 13 by the end of the third quarter. But nobody was really panicking, because the Clippers still seemingly had the game well in hand.
The Rockets got within single digits at 94-85, until J.J. Redick hit a three to seemingly stop the bleeding. Phew. An Austin Rivers and-one at the 7:38 mark of the fourth period put the Clippers up 100-88, and Lawler's Law had been initiated. The Law had yet to be broken thus far in the series, and there was no way the Clips would let this all-important home game slip through their fingers, right?
Well...on the next trip down, Houston's Corey Brewer converted an and-one of his own to cancel out the one Austin Rivers had just converted. Then an empty Clippers offensive possession resulted in a Josh Smith three-pointer on the other end. Chris Paul hit an easy three-footer...only to see Smith drill another triple on the next trip down for the Rockets.
Staples Center, which had been chanting loudly, "Warriors! Come out to play!" during the third quarter fell into a tense, worried silence. Suddenly, memories of the years and years of the team's futility and heartbreak came rushing back like a recurring nightmare to Clipper fans everywhere. They're not really going to do this, are they? The Clipper lead, once 19, was down to five, 102-97, with well over five minutes remaining.
DeAndre Jordan missed a dunk (has that ever happened before?). Matt Barnes missed a three. Josh Smith hit a three-footer. Dwight Howard rejected Blake Griffin. Howard made a free throw. Griffin missed an easy one. Brewer drove for a dunk.
The game was tied.
Blake Griffin missed another easy one, and Houston called a timeout upon snagging the defensive rebound.
The game was still tied.
Following the timeout, Corey Brewer knocked down another long-range bomb to give Houston its first lead since late in the second quarter, and the game was essentially over from here. The Rockets would go on to score another 14 points, while the Clippers could only muster five, including a meaningless CP3 three-pointer as time expired.
In the final frame, the score was Houston: 40, Los Angeles: 15. Corey Brewer and Josh Smith combined to hit five-of-seven shots from three in the quarter. Los Angeles hit four shots from the field in the entire quarter. At one point, Houston scored 18 consecutive points.
The Clippers got 31 points, 11 assists and seven rebounds from Chris Paul, and 28 points and eight rebounds from Blake Griffin...and lost. James Harden did not play in the fourth quarter. The Clippers still lost. There are countless words I can use to describe what went on in the fourth quarter of this game, but the majority of them aren't suitable for this page.
For the second straight game, the Clippers' three-point shooting deserted them. Chris Paul was 1-of-5. Matt Barnes 1-of-8. J.J. Redick 3-of-9. Jamal Crawford 1-of-4. Austin Rivers 0-of-3. The Clips made seven threes in this game. The Rockets made 13, seven of which came from Smith and Trevor Ariza.
The key for Houston in its Game 5 win was DeAndre Jordan picking up three fouls in the first half and having to sit for the majority. Once he was able to come back out for the third quarter, the deficit was too large for the Clips to overcome.
In Game 6, it was Howard that picked up a pair of early fouls, while Jordan was able to stay on the court and wound up playing 41 minutes. Yet Howard was the far superior player on this night, contributing 20 points, 21 rebounds and countless defensive plays that helped turn the momentum of the game on its head. D.J. had just eight points and nine rebounds, though he did block four shots. In all honesty, however, you could hardly notice him out there.
So now, it's back to Texas. This will be L.A.'s sixth trip to Texas since April 24th. That's a lot of trips. On the bright side, they'll finally have a pair of consecutive days off for the first time since April 21-22, as Game 7 in Houston won't be until Sunday. Based on the way LAC has looked down-the-stretch of the last couple of games, rest is badly, badly needed. Friday night's Warriors-Grizzlies game will determine when our Game 7 will take place. If the Warriors close out the series, Clippers-Rockets will tip at 12:30pm PT Sunday afternoon. If Memphis pushes it to seven games themselves, L.A. and Houston will square-off in the nightcap at 5pm.
Unless the Clippers can rebound and right all that's gone wrong over the last few days, the specter of Game 6 will linger over Clipperland for a long, long time.
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