Persistence, resilience, and everything in between
Rumor has it that this LA Clippers team has never seen a deficit that they weren’t comfortable with.
Monday night’s victory marked the fourth time this season that the Clippers have come back to win a game that they once trailed by at least 20 points in, with the other three occurrences happening within a week of each other.
In early February on a cold day in Detroit, Michigan, the LA Clippers went down by 25 points in the second quarter of their matchup with the Pistons. From that point on, the Clippers outscored the Pistons 82-47 and walked away with a 10-point victory. Unsurprisingly, Lou Williams led the way for LA, dropping 39 points and nine assists.
Three days later, the Clippers found themselves down 20 at the hands of the Charlotte Hornets — only this time, they had even less time to come back from the deficit.
LA trailed 68-88 with 3:17 to go in the third quarter, but outscored the Hornets 49-27 over the course of the remaining 15 minutes in what would become a 117-115 victory. That same night, after he hit the game-winning shot, the Clippers traded away Tobias Harris in a move that many thought would end their run towards the playoffs.
But at the end of the week, the Clippers once again made the impossible happen.
After trailing by as many as 28 points against the Boston Celtics, the makeshift Clippers (who had only met each other one day prior) came back and won by 11, outscoring Kyrie Irving‘s squad 70-38 in the second half.
The regular season certainly isn’t the playoffs, but it prepares teams for them. And on Monday night, the Clippers proved once again that there is no mountain too tall for them to climb.