Leonard saves the best for last; Clippers do too

He scores 18 of his 30 points in the fourth quarter to keep L.A. unbeaten at home.

For more than a year, the Clippers have self-identified as a “blacktop” team that feels more kinship with the grit of weekend grinders than polished pros, to the point that their home court is now ringed by a map of city streets on a black background.

If their branding is no longer new, it nonetheless took on new meaning Sunday night at Staples Center. The Clippers’ offensive struggles through their first three quarters against Utah were pronounced enough to appear they were shooting on the double-iron, ultrastiff rims that clang jump shots on playgrounds across Los Angeles.

But what started ugly ended a thing of beauty for

Clippers fans, who chanted “M-V-P!” at Kawhi Leonard during a fourth quarter in which the superstar forward scored 18 of his 30 points and his team rebounded, in every sense of the word, en route to a 105-94 victory against the Jazz.

“Maybe if I made shots early, we wouldn’t have got in that predicament,” Leonard said. “Lou [Williams] stepped up and made a big three. JaMychal [Green] did as well, hit a big, wide-open three that put us up four or five at the time and that kind of got us going, got me going.”

Leonard now ranks first in the NBA in fourth-quarter scoring, with his 12.6 points on 55.3% shooting surpassing the 11.7 averaged thus far by Portland’s Damian Lillard.

But after scoring only five points in the first half and 12 through three quarters, his late outburst was stunning even by his standards. He also dished a pair of assists that led to six more points.

“We were down by 10 in the third and I was on the bench and I was like, ‘We’re