LOS ANGELES _ The pain registered on Chris Paul's face immediately after he suffered a bloody nose from an inadvertent Russell Westbrook elbow late in the second quarter.
After a quick trip to the locker room, Paul returned in the final few seconds of the quarter with his right nostril stuffed.
It wasn't a surprise that Paul would toughen it out, but so did Westbrook and the Oklahoma City Thunder, who gutted out an 85-83 victory Wednesday night at Staples Center. The Thunder improved to 4-0, handing the Los Angeles Clippers (3-1) their first loss.
"I thought we just didn't trust our stuff tonight as a group," Clippers coach Doc Rivers said. "It was our first game, quote unquote, game that had a lot of meaning, I guess. We failed that test tonight. To me it was the fact that everyone wanted to win so badly that they got in the way of each other."
Paul almost had a triple-double, finishing with 15 points, 11 rebounds and nine assists.
Westbrook had his string of consecutive triple-doubles snapped at three, but he finished with 35 points, six rebounds and five assists.
He was the big force in the game.
There was Westbrook's drive past every Clipper for a dunk in the third quarter in which he got to the hoop so fast that DeAndre Jordan could only watch the guard fly by him.
Even with all that, the Clippers and Thunder stood up to the other's charge the rest of the game.
Neither team shot the ball particularly well, the Clippers making just 39.1 percent of their shots, the Thunder 40.5 percent of theirs.
Clippers forward Blake Griffin finished with 14 points, making only seven of 21 shots. Griffin also had nine rebounds.
It was rookie Domantas Sabonis who delivered the big punch, giving the Thunder a 79-78 lead on a three-pointer.
Then the game got sloppy, with turnovers by Paul and Westbrook, who eventually gave the Thunder an 83-78 lead with consecutive baskets.
After J.J. Redick made a three-pointer, Andre Roberson got an offensive rebound and was fouled by Jamal Crawford.
Roberson missed both free throws with 39.2 seconds left, but the Clippers couldn't claim the rebound, giving the ball back to the Thunder with 38.5 seconds left and trailing 83-81.
"They made plays. They got a rebound off a missed free throw," Rivers said.
The Clippers were out-rebounded for the first time this season, 52-41. They gave up 10 offensive rebounds.
The Thunder called time after the Clippers couldn't get the rebound off Roberson's miss and put the ball in the hands of Westbrook.
Westbrook came around a screen full bore and pulled up for a 17-foot jumper for an 85-81 Thunder lead with 18.7 seconds left.
Maybe it was the intensity of the game that created so much poor shooting in the first half.
Maybe it was the defensive pressure that caused both teams to miss shot after shot.
Whatever the case, neither team tore it up.
The Clippers shot 37.8 percent from the floor in the first half and turned the ball over nine times.
The Thunder had a strong finish to the second quarter to finish shooting 42.6 percent in the first 24 minutes.
The Thunder also turned the ball over nine times, but opened a 49-41 halftime lead.
