Three takeaways from the LA Clippers’ gutsy Game 5 victory
Facing elimination, the LA Clippers went into Oracle Arena and handled the Golden State Warriors to force a Game 6 back in Los Angeles.
Down 3-1 and heading into Oracle Arena for Game 5, there’s no disputing the idea that the LA Clippers would have quite the uphill battle if they wanted to extend the series. After all, this is the Golden State Warriors we’re talking about here. Considering the circumstances, and the fact that LA already stole one game from the Warriors, nobody would’ve faulted them if they folded in Game 5.
I guess the Clippers had other plans.
Right from the start of Wednesday night’s game, the Clippers made sure the Warriors knew they weren’t going down without a fight. Patrick Beverley came out firing and hustling as hard as ever, racking up 11 points in the first quarter alone and leaving some blood on the floor near the quarter’s end. By the time the first came to a close, the Warriors had opened up a 41-37 lead — but that was as good as the defending champions would look all night.
LA didn’t let up in the second quarter, outscoring Golden State by 12 and hanging 71 total points in the first half. To that point, their eight-point lead at the half was LA’s largest of the series.
And that was all well and good — there’s no use in complaining about being up on the Warriors at halftime, but as one of the best second half (specifically third quarter) teams in the NBA, the Clippers would need to weather another storm before us fans seriously started to think that they were going to pull off another upset.
Once again, though, the Clippers proved that they really didn’t care who the Warriors are, or what they’ve done all season. They persisted and continued to play Clippers basketball, and kept pushing well into the second half.
Montrezl Harrell led the charge in the third, scoring eight points in the later half of the quarter to put the Warriors down 10 as the two teams went into the fourth.
Golden State edged the Clippers in the final quarter, 27-25, and things got far too close for comfort in the final minutes.
With 2:40 left on the clock, Kevin Durant threw down a violent slam to put the Warriors up 117-118 — notching a new playoffs career-high 45 points in the process. Oracle, as usual, went absolutely bonkers when it all happened, and the pressure looked like it might finally get to the Clippers.
Lou Williams didn’t care, though. Cool as ever, he dribbled down the floor right into a three-pointer from the left side, draining it and getting fouled in the act. And just like that, the Clippers were back on top, regaining a lead that they wouldn’t relinquish.
Williams scored the next four points, capping a personal 8-0 run with a fadeaway jumper that put the Clippers up 125-118 with 1:30 to play. Golden State connected on just one of their next six shots from then on, and the Clippers came away with a 129-121 victory.
A lot of things went right for LA in Game 5, some of which I’ll be getting into on the following slides. So for some in-depth takeaways, head on to the next page.