Spurs start slow, finish fast to beat Clippers in Game 3

No team in NBA history has come back to win a playoff series after losing the first three games. That’s exactly the position the Clippers find themselves in now.

After jumping to a 22-point lead in the first quarter, and pushing it to 24 early in the second, the Clippers went dormant offensively and defensively. They ended up losing Game 3 of their Western Conference semifinal series to the San Antonio Spurs, 96-86, before a silent sea of red T-shirt clad fans in Staples Center.

The Clippers played the role of a thoroughbred that jumps to the lead in mile-and-a-quarter horse race and begins to fade. Those horses rarely recover, and the Clippers didn’t here.

They play the Spurs again on Sunday night at Staples Center, facing the daunting task of winning not only that game, but another at Staples and two in San Antonio to advance to the conference finals. With the way they have played in the first three games, with the exception of the first quarter Sunday, the Clippers are in a deep hole without much chance of climbing out.

Tony Parker, with 21 points and 10 assists, and Tim Duncan, with 19 points and 13 rebounds, led San Antonio. Kawhi Leonard, with 14 points and nine rebounds, and Manu Ginobli, with 13 points and six assists, added balance for the Spurs, who were never seriously threatened once they had taken control with a 24-0 run in the third quarter.

Blake Griffin, who had 14 points in the Clippers’ big first quarter when the built a 33-11 lead, finished with 28 points and 16 rebounds. Chris Paul had 12 points and 11 assists. Mo Williams added 19 points off the bench.

Paul and Griffin teamed to help L.A. get to within eight points in the final quarter, Paul driving to the basket and hitting an 18-footer and Griffin hitting two free throws, to make the score 86-78 with 4:49 to play. But San Antonio answered each Clipper effort after that, and more. Boris Diaw’s backdoor basket with 3:21 to play gave San Antonio a 91-78 lead and led to a Clippers timeout.

At that point, San Antonio’s strategy was to foul Reggie Evans, a notoriously poor free-throw shooter. He went to the line four times and made only two of eight.

The Clippers, who had started so strongly with Paul and Griffin showing some of the speed and power that had defined their games before both were injured in Game 5 of the first-round series against Memphis, were outscored by 12 points in the second quarter and 14 in the third. They essentially kept pace with San Antonio in the fourth, but that wasn’t nearly enough.

Two shots by Griffin and two by Mo Williams cut San Antonio’s lead to 76-69 and led to a San Antonio timeout with 9:13 to play.

San Antonio 69, Clippers 61 (end of third quarter)

It didn’t take the Spurs long to make the 10-point halftime deficit a distant memory. With the Clippers missing 13 consecutive shots, San Antonio went on a 24-0 run, scoring easily inside against a Clippers defense that had suddenly slowed to three-quarter speed. Tim Duncan scored nine points in the quarter and had 19 after three.

The Clippers’ offense operated at the same speed as the defense, though a Mo Williams jumper and a steal and breakaway layup by Chris Paul cut San Antonio’s lead to 69-61 entering the fourth.

San Antonio outscored the Clippers 26-8 in the quarter and had outscored L.A., 58-28, in the second and third.

Asked before the game whether the Clippers would be satisfied with a 10-point lead going into the second half, you can assume just about every Clipper would take it. But San Antonio’s 15-5 run had taken some of the edge off the Clippers’ early performance, which had produced a 24-point lead at one point early in the second quarter.

Three minutes into the second half, the lead was reduced to seven, 57-50, when Tony Parker found Kawhi Leonard for a three-pointer from the corner and the Clippers promptly called timeout. The Clippers had overcome a 24-point, second-half deficit in the first game in the first-round series against the Memphis Grizzlies; the Spurs were showing that they were certainly capable of erasing the Clippers’ early advantage.

The Clippers offense suddenly stagnated, and when Duncan found Leonard inside for a layup and Leonard was fouled by Griffin, the Spurs had a chance to tie. Leonard made the free throw and it was 57-57 with 7:28 to go. The teams were back to square one, and only the Spurs were playing well.

Duncan then came back with another basket to put San Antonio on top, 59-57, as the Spurs were on a 14-0 run in front of a silent crowd in Staples Center. San Antonio had outscored the Clippers by 12 in the second quarter and with a timeout with five minutes to play, had outscored the Clippers by 12 more, 16-4, in the third.

After the timeout, the run became 17-0 on Danny Green’s three-pointer, then Duncan scored easily inside to give San Antonio a 64-57 lead. Duncan’s drive and score a few minutes later pushed San Antonio’s lead to 69-59 before Williams’ shot.

Clippers 53, Spurs 43 (halftime)

The Clippers streaked to a 24-point lead early in the second quarter on Nick Young’s three-point shot, but San Antonio soon began to start playing the type of game that had given them a 2-0 series lead. The Spurs finished the half on a 15-5 run, Mo Williams’ three-point shot late in the quarter stalling the Spurs’ charge.

Blake Griffin played an aggressive first half, finishing with 20 points on 10-for-13 shooting and seven rebounds. Chris Paul had eight assists.

The Clippers held a 22-18 rebounding edge, an area that has been a problem for them this series.

Tony Parker had 11 points for the Spurs, who got contributions from Manu Ginobli and Boris Diaw in the closing minutes of the half as the Spurs turned the game into a 10-point deficit.

The Clippers’ second unit, with Williams scoring on a drive and Young hitting two outside shots, including a three-pointer, kept pace with the Spurs’ second unit at the start of the quarter and held a 40-19 lead when Clippers Coach Vinny Del Negro called a timeout with 8:21 left until hafltime.

The Staples Center crowd, again clad in red playoff T-shirts with Clipper Nation All In on the front, had plenty to cheer about early, with contributions from starters as well as reserves. At least in the early going, the teams had reversed roles from Games 1 and 2. That wouldn’t last.

The Spurs, not surprisingly, began to make a move midway through the second quarter, with Duncan scoring on a rebound, a baseline fadeaway and a follow shot to cut the Clippers’ lead to 48-33 with 2:49 to play, leading to a Clippers timeout.

Clippers 33, Spurs 11 (end of first quarter)

If the Clippers had any hope of reversing the momentum of two consecutive lopsided losses to the San Antonio Spurs, they needed at least to have Chris Paul and Blake Griffin contribute the way they had to get the team into the playoffs and into the Western Conference semifinals.

Paul had an uncharacteristic eight turnovers in the Game 2 blowout loss and scored only 10 points; Griffin had only one rebound. Compounding those numbers, center DeAndre Jordan has appeared lost offensively and defensively, and the Spurs have taken full advantage inside.

The key, as it has been in each game since Paul and Griffin were injured in Game 5 of the first-round series against the Memphis Grizzlies, was how well would the Clippers’ top two players be able to perform through those injuries. And would the return to Staples Center, where the Clippers are 2-1 in the playoffs and 24-9 this season, be enough to overcome losses of 16 and 17 points?

The early answers? The Clippers were intent on not going down 3-0 in the best-of-seven series. And Griffin was a major reason for it. He had 14 points and five rebounds in the quarter as the rejuvenated Clippers used a 24-2 spurt to close out the quarter to take a 33-11 lead. They never trailed in the opening quarter.

Paul and Griffin both figured prominently early. Randy Foye hit his first two shots, Paul had four points and Griffin pulled down three rebounds, then scored on a short jumper with 7:31 left in the first quarter to give the Clippers a 13-7 lead, which was followed by a San Antonio timeout.

Jordan was also very active early, and his second basket with five minutes left gave the Clippers a 17-9 lead.

Griffin’s inside move pushed the lead to 19-9, and a lob from Paul to Griffin for an alley-oop dunk made it 21-9. When Griffin, playing more aggressively than he has at any point in the series, powered his way inside for another basket, the Clippers’ lead had grown to 23-9 with 2:04 left in the quarter.

Paul had four points and seven assists, Jordan had four points and five rebounds while operating at a higher speed that he has in the last two games, and San Antonio was shooting only 25%.