LOS ANGELES — The recorded crowd noise pumping through Staples Center was entirely fake.
The pressure felt by San Antonio during Tuesday’s fourth quarter, when the audio track seemed to only grow louder with every basket of a Los Angeles Clippers comeback, was very much real.
A 15-point San Antonio lead with five minutes remaining was down to single digits with 3 minutes, 31 seconds left. Then it was down to just two with 13 seconds left, as Nicolas Batum held the ball out of bounds, looking to inbound the pass to Kawhi Leonard.
Two days removed from holding off an opponent’s furious second-half rally for a win, Clippers reserves stood by their seats, now savoring the sight of a sliced lead.
The night would end, only minutes later, with the quiet of a slow walk toward the home locker room after a 116-113 defeat.
Unable to shake loose for his own shot after Batum’s inbound, Leonard passed to Luke Kennard at the top of the three-point arc, but his shot misfired and San Antonio’s Patty Mills made one of his two free throws at the other end to add a slight cushion.
“He’s one of the greatest players in basketball, he made the right play,” Clippers guard Patrick Beverley said of Leonard’s pass to the open Kennard.
Given one more chance to tie, Leonard missed a leaning three-pointer from 26 feet in front of his team’s bench.
The night typified the kind of big margins and big comebacks that have become the hallmark of a head-scratching start to this season across the entire league. The ending spoiled Leonard’s 30-point, 10-assist performance that sparked his team’s comeback from a deficit that was as much as 24 points in the first half.
Batum scored 21 points and Beverley had 20 points, with eight rebounds and eight assists, but Mills was a dagger in the Clippers’ back by making a career-high eight three-pointers for 27 points off the bench to lead the Spurs (3-4).
“He opened it up for those guys the way he was shooting the ball,” Clippers coach Tyronn Lue said.
It was the first time this season the Clippers (5-3) played without Paul George, who was ruled out a half-hour before tipoff after he “kind of tweaked his ankle a little bit” Sunday against Phoenix, Lue said.
Even with a hurt right ankle, George scored 39 points in that victory to push his season averages to 25.1 points, 5.7 rebounds and 5.1 assists while making 49.2% of his three-pointers through seven games.
“He’s in a really good groove,” Lue said.
His team couldn’t say the same Tuesday.
After missing their first six shots, including five three-pointers, to trail by nine after four minutes, the Clippers closed their deficit to one on a rare Reggie Jackson dunk late in the first quarter. Yet that rally belied the impact of George’s absence. Already down one starter in Marcus Morris, Lue now didn’t have the luxury of staggering Leonard and George’s minutes to keep at least one on the floor at all times. Lue played Leonard the entire first quarter, about two minutes longer than during a normal rotation, then saw a star-less lineup struggle to generate quality shots to begin the second quarter.
In the five minutes Leonard was on the bench catching his breath, the Spurs outscored the Clippers 15-3 to lead by 21. Despite facing double teams, Leonard scored 17 first-half points on an efficient 58% shooting, then made his first four shots of the second half, including a right-handed dunk in traffic to cut San Antonio’s lead to nine.
His hot start mirrored his team’s, which made nine of its first 10 shots after halftime and shot 76% in the quarter to outscore the Spurs by 17, an offensive explosion keyed by the thing the Clippers could not do in the first half – make three-pointers. After making 3 of their 17 shots from deep in the first half, they made seven three-pointers in the third quarter alone.
But as soon as the Clippers took a one-point lead in the opening seconds of the fourth quarter, the Spurs answered by scoring 12 unanswered points. The Clippers would play from behind the rest of the way, unable to overcome the hole they created.
