We fought hard. We just made some simple mental mistakes and with Blake and Chris out, we can not really afford to make mistakes. “I had to call two timeouts (in the third)”. Just control what you can control. That’s not conditioning, that was emotion. Moe Harkless added a nice boost as well, posting 19 points and grabbing 10 rebounds. Plumlee also grabbed 15 rebounds. Lillard struggled for the first three quarters of the game, converting his first field goal attempt early in the third. At this point in the series, we know who these two teams are. Paul is out indefinitely after breaking his right hand on a freakish play in Game 4, when Griffin aggravated a left quadriceps injury that had kept him out three months during the season.
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The Clippers received a golden opportunity to get to the conference finals and beyond due to reigning league MVP Stephen Curry spraining his knee during Game 4 in Houston, but that window of opportunity was shut down quickly. J.J. Redick scored 19 points, DeAndre Jordan finished with 16 and 17 rebounds while even going above.500 from the line. Furthermore, the Clippers defense continued to execute the traps that have limited Lillard throughout this series even in the absence of Paul, who garnered much of the credit for the team’s defensive execution.
“We just made some simple mental mistakes and with Blake and Chris out, we can not really afford to make mistakes”, guard Austin Rivers said. “Feel like I can still play efficient enough to be there for the team”. Usually the home team gets off to the quick start. Without Chris Paul and Blake Griffin, Doc Rivers was forced to bench Luc Richard Mbah a Moute as well, inserting Austin Rivers, Jamal Crawford, and Paul Pierce into the three empty starter slots.
The Clippers started slow and looked like a group that had played little together in the opening quarter. Unfortunately for Los Angeles, they simply ran out of gas and didn’t have their All-Star talent available to counter a big-time fourth quarter from Damian Lillard. There was the very real threat that this could have been a trap game, and the Clippers hung with Portland as best they could, taking a tie game into the fourth quarter.
“At that time it got caught in the wrong place”, coach Doc Rivers said.
It played out nearly like a regular season game when an overmatched team takes on a more talented foe, with the Blazers pulling away as the game went on.
Portland can knock out Rivers Clippers, while Charlotte tries to eliminate Miami. He opened with a 3-pointer, hit another one and then dunked off his steal of Pablo Prigioni. Jamal Crawford was miserable from the field, stepping into one bad midrange look after another that the Portland defense eagerly surrendered to his trigger-happy hands.
The Portland Trail Blazers beat the Los Angeles Clippers behind a monster fourth quarter that showed how thin the Clippers were following catastrophic injuries to Chris Paul and Blake Griffin.
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“Experience, I do think it helps”, Hawks coach Mike Budenholzer said. After regaining his composure, Rivers said the question made him think of his late mom Bettye, who died in June 2015 after a lengthy illness. Lillard, who had been mostly contained this series, erupted at last in Staples Center, sending in a number of hard makes and wild banked three-pointers to seal the game and quite possibly the series.
