In all, he took 10 free throws in the second half, the kind of downhill attacks the Clippers believe unlock their offense. George returned in the second half to score 10 points in the third quarter, with six of his eight shots at or within feet of the rim. Indiana’s college hoops rivalry with Illinois is partly responsible. It was one of the last obvious miscues of the night.Ĭlippers ‘Frothing at the mouth’ hatred against Eric Gordon forged his calming court presenceĮric Gordon has played a vital role in restoring the Clippers’ playoff push. That spurred a chat between center Ivica Zubac and forward Marcus Morris Sr. Late in the third quarter, Blazers forward Trendon Watford caught every defender unaware when he took a handoff near the elbow and, instead of flipping the ball to a guard, spun and walked into a layup. “You can point to a lot of reasons, me included.”Īnd though they led wire-to-wire, they could not comfortably put away Portland’s 23 rd-ranked offense, even on one of Lillard’s poorest shooting nights of an otherwise incandescent season. Outside of a first-quarter stretch in which Leonard scored eight of the Clippers’ 10 points, the team couldn’t maintain control against a languishing Trail Blazers team with the 29th-ranked defense since the All-Star break, a team that does not “have the grit or the toughness that’s necessary to win really big,” coach Chauncey Billups said frankly before tipoff. He would miss eight of his first nine shots in the first half, and his struggle to find a flow would have been easy to spotlight if the rest of his team had not been affected, as well, as their 15-point first-quarter lead disappeared midway through the second quarter. Instead George drew two fouls within five minutes and went to the bench, where he stayed until the second quarter’s start. The return of Leonard after he rested Saturday - he still is not playing on consecutive days - was supposed to bring back the team’s two-star dynamic. Kawhi Leonard, who took an elbow to the back but called himself “OK,” had 24 points and Russell Westbrook added nine points, 12 rebounds and 10 assists in 34 minutes, the Clippers turning to him to close the game just as they had a day earlier, though with drastically different results. It was a prime opportunity to gain ground in the packed Western Conference standings after Minnesota, Golden State and Phoenix, all surrounding the Clippers in the standings, had lost in the previous 24 hours. But we tried to do as much as possible on Dame.” We had to dial in on him and if other guys make shots, they make shots. “The fact that we saw Steph early, we were better prepared for Dame. “I think it would’ve been vice versa, if we would’ve saw Dame early, we would’ve been prepared for Steph,” said Paul George, who scored a team-high 29 points. The Clippers won that game - and left better prepared for Lillard. The Clippers had watched Curry hang 50 points on them Wednesday. It was a valid concern, given that Lillard went into the game averaging 32.4 points, third in the league behind Philadelphia's Joel Embiid (33.5) and Dallas' Luka Doncic (33).“We wanted to be physical with Lillard and we always wanted him to just make the pass and make somebody else make things happen,” said Eric Gordon, who scored 20 points off the bench, making four of his five three-pointers, and was again entrusted with crunch-time minutes, playing the final 16. So when asked before the game if Brody had any advice for his father ahead of Sunday night's meeting with the Blazers, Craig laughed: “He's worried about Lillard.” Lillard has scored 20 or more points in 31 straight games, an ongoing career record and the longest active streak in the NBA.Ĭraig said his 7-year-old son Brody is a “hoop junkie” who steals the team reports out of his dad's bag to study them. Trail Blazers: Nassir Little returned after missed Portland's last game, a 126-112 loss to the Boston Celtics on Friday, because of a non-COVID illness. The two teams play once more, on April 8 in Los Angeles. The Clippers have won three straight against the Blazers, including a 118-112 victory on Nov. Clippers: Leonard started after sitting out the Clippers' loss to Orlando on Saturday because of injury management.
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