National Guard troops patrolled the streets on the day the game was supposed to be played.
A dense, dark haze drifted overhead as hundreds of fires burned and thousands of looters rampaged across the city.
Basketball did not seem so important.
It was the spring of 1992 and the NBA playoff series between the Clippers and the Utah Jazz was abruptly interrupted _ like the rest of normal life in Los Angeles _ by widespread rioting.
With the Sports Arena perched at the edge of a violence-racked neighborhood, Game 4 was postponed and, back in New York, league officials wanted to shift the series out of town, perhaps to Las Vegas.
Twenty-five years later _ as the teams meet again in the postseason _ memories of that time remain vivid for a few people in the Clippers organization.
A front-office executive recalls the frantic search for an alternate playing site, officials wondering if they could sneak back into the Sports Arena to pack up their blue-and-red-adorned hardwood floor. And maybe grab some towels and Gatorade.
Doc Rivers, now the Clippers coach, was a veteran guard for the team then. He remembers that players had a more immediate concern.
"We couldn't find anywhere to practice," he says. "It was crazy."
