The loss had been decided, their season all but over, and as the end settled in, the Clippers’ stares grew longer.
His arms crossed, his expression flat, coach Tyronn Lue leaned against the scorer’s table inside Staples Center as Chris Paul made a final dagger 3-pointer Wednesday.
Kawhi Leonard, joining his teammates on the sideline for the first time in these Western Conference finals, his injured right knee hidden in black pants, looked down the sideline where Paul screamed a cathartic roar inside the arena he once called home.
And Paul George, the All-Star who had played more minutes than anyone this postseason, wiped his brow with a towel in a folding chair along the sideline. He and the rest of the Clippers’ starters had earned a standing ovation with 2:58 to play in Game 6, but they had not earned another chance to continue this team’s defiant, unprecedented playoff run.
To end a Clippers postseason defined by their unwillingness to go quietly, it was Paul who finally dug his former team a trench too deep, then tossed on the dirt for good measure. His 41 points were the catalyst for Phoenix’s series-clinching 130-103 victory to send the Suns to their first NBA Finals since 1993 and deny the Clippers the kind of rally that had extended their season during two previous rounds.
Those comebacks had become so routine that it didn’t appear over when Phoenix built a 10-point lead with nine minutes left before halftime. It was tied four minutes later.
And it didn’t appear over when the Suns' lead was up to 17 with four minutes to play in the third quarter. It was down to seven only two minutes later.
But Paul was indomitable after three previous inconsistent efforts, his seven three-pointers, and 66% shooting overall. He scored 31 of his points in the second half, the kind of performance he had waited 15 years for.
When it was over, it still didn’t feel like it to the Clippers.
“It is a shock,” Lue said. “I think it’s a shock to a lot of the guys in the locker room. It tells you a lot about the team. No matter who’s playing we think we still have a chance.”
Two days after rescuing the Clippers’ season for one more game with a career-high 41 points, George scored 21, “gassed,” after 41 more minutes, Lue said. Marcus Morris, still playing on a left knee not fully healthy, scored a team-high 26.
After missing all nine of the 3-pointers he took Games 4 and 5, Paul made his first two and forced Lue to call an early timeout, down six.
But at the first quarter’s end, the Suns led by just four despite 25 combined points by Paul, Deandre Ayton and Devin Booker after DeMarcus Cousins banked in a last-second fadeaway prayer from beyond the 3-point arc. As the center stormed back to the huddle, looking as surprised as anyone at the shot he’d just made, Leonard extended a hand for a high-five. He had stayed in California for road games and a suite for Games 3 and 4 while enduring criticism for not being with his teammates.
It sparked hope that the Clippers would find a way to do it again, one more rally, but there was not enough shooting (30% from deep) when the Suns made 17 of their 31 3-pointers.
With 5:49 to play, and the Clippers down 26, guard Patrick Beverley shoved Paul in the back with two hands and was ejected. As referees reviewed the play, he told Lue he was “good,” nodding his head, but he was soon gone, and his team not far behind him.
With Beverley’s frustration-filled shove, “we knew we broke them,” Suns forward Jae Crowder said.
Like their three other losses in this series, this was a winnable game had the Clippers’ self-inflicted mistakes not been too much. In this case, it wasn’t a last-second inbound pass (Game 2) or an 0 for 10 shooting slump with a chance to take the lead (Game 4) but 19 second-chance points the Suns capitalized with when rebounds often fell out of the Clippers’ grip.
It was the coda no one wanted to the Clippers’ finest season, their first conference final appearance in 51 years the product of an unprecedented run that saw them rally from down 2-0 against Dallas and Utah. All the “bubble talk” that Lue said had followed the team after its postseason collapse nine months ago, the questions about their toughness, were answered as the Clippers lost center Serge Ibaka to injury, then Leonard and finally center Ivica Zubac, yet still pushed on.
“You think about it, if we had our guys what would have happened or what could have happened but just got to move on,” Lue said. “I think the next-man-up mentality doesn’t mean that you don’t care and miss those guys but you have a mindset that we don’t have them and come out on the floor and we got to produce any way we can. All season long, all playoffs long, different guys have stepped up and been huge for us and that’s the type of team you want to have.”
Guard Reggie Jackson’s eyes welled up, red, minutes after the game, still sitting in a sweat-filled uniform.
“Extremely proud of this team,” he said. “Sucks that it’s cut short, short of our ultimate goal this year to win a championship. … I couldn’t be prouder.”
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