Clippers Rally to Beat Trail Blazers 113-112
WASHINGTON (Dispatches) - Considering the sizable holes in each roster Tuesday, it would have been easy to dismiss the Clippers’ 113-112 win in Portland as a shell of the first-round playoff preview this matchup currently appears on paper.
The Clippers, the Western Conference’s third-place team, were missing All-Star Kawhi Leonard — who will be out at least three games while managing soreness in his right foot — as well as starters Serge Ibaka and Patrick Beverley and because of it, used this season’s 21st different starting lineup.
The sixth-place Trail Blazers, with All-Star Damian Lillard out for a third straight game because of a hamstring, and center Enes Kanter sidelined, too, were missing their offensive engine and dominant rebounder.
And yet should these teams meet again for a seven-game series in late May, there could be lessons the Clippers draw on from one month earlier. They swept the regular-season series with Portland by doing the kind of thing that has happened so rarely — winning a tight game in the final minutes — by replicating some of the discomfort they had caused Portland’s backcourt in two previous wins, when they had trapped and blitzed Lillard into two ineffective performances.
The Clippers, the Western Conference’s third-place team, were missing All-Star Kawhi Leonard — who will be out at least three games while managing soreness in his right foot — as well as starters Serge Ibaka and Patrick Beverley and because of it, used this season’s 21st different starting lineup.
The sixth-place Trail Blazers, with All-Star Damian Lillard out for a third straight game because of a hamstring, and center Enes Kanter sidelined, too, were missing their offensive engine and dominant rebounder.
And yet should these teams meet again for a seven-game series in late May, there could be lessons the Clippers draw on from one month earlier. They swept the regular-season series with Portland by doing the kind of thing that has happened so rarely — winning a tight game in the final minutes — by replicating some of the discomfort they had caused Portland’s backcourt in two previous wins, when they had trapped and blitzed Lillard into two ineffective performances.