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Three weeks after beating the Spurs in a statement win on their home court, both teams reverted to form last night, with the Spurs playing like defending world champs, and the Clippers playing like an unfocused lower playoff seed.
You can blame it on the rain that drenched Los Angeles for most of the day, the head cold that put Sam Cassell in a fog, the bad bounces and rolls that kept so many Clippers shots out of the basket.
For one or all of the above reasons, the Clippers never got into a game they would eventually lose, 98-87. Even with Tony Parker (shin contusion) out of the lineup, even with their own team finally at full strength for the first time all season (!), the Clippers couldn’t take advantage. The Spurs spaced the floor, shot 49%, and rotated efficiently enough to harass the Clips into a miserable 37% shooting performance. How efficient were the Spurs? They had 32 assists on their 36 field goals.
“We got looks, and missed ‘em,” said a tired Cassell later. “They got looks – and made ‘em.”
“There’s no mystery to what happened tonight,” said coach Mike Dunleavy. “They made ten three pointers. We made one. We got broken down on the dribble and didn’t communicate well on our rotations.”
Right from the opening tap, the Spurs appeared amped, and the Clips out of sync. Even the late-arriving crowd couldn’t get going. Though coach Greg Popovich wouldn’t admit so much before the game, his team had to be thinking about the dire ramifications of losing two games in a row to a possible first-round playoff opponent on their home court. On March 7, the Clippers handled the Spurs 98-85, keeping Parker out of the lane and sending Tim Duncan to the bench with early foul trouble.
The Clippers had no such luck on this night. They played credible enough defense to hang with the Spurs for the first half, but consecutive three-pointers by Michael Finley (6-8, 20 points) helped the Spurs open up a 9-point lead that the Clippers never recovered from. The Spurs led by as many as 18 in the fourth
After the Clips began the second half with a surge, the Spurs calmly scored 13 in a row. Finley, Bruce Bowen (6-12, 16 points) Brent Barry (11 points) and even Nick Van Exel picked up the slack left by Parker’s absence, while Elton Brand (7-18, 20 points) and Corey Maggette (3-11, 16 points) struggled offensively, and Cassell (8 points) was virtually invisible. Even the normally reliable Vladimir Radmanovic missed 5 of his 8 FG attempts.
For the Clippers, prior winners of 8 of 12, it was a sobering reminder of what can be expected come playoff time. A Memphis loss prevented the Grizzlies from leapfrogging ahead of the Clips into the No. 5 slot, though the schedule for the remaining 11 games favors Memphis. Still, whoever the Clippers draw, the loss to the Spurs was a disturbing reminder of the Clippers’ tendency to lose focus and urgency.
“We’ve got to use this as a learning experience,” said Corey Maggette, but this familiar lament is getting old. In this most successful of Clipper seasons, their biggest challenge will be dealing with the relentless pressure of a seven-game playoff series, when teams can’t afford to take a night off. With three weeks left in the season, the learning should be almost complete by now. |
