SUN SETS ON CLIPPERS’ SEASON
Chris Paul leads Phoenix to its first NBA Finals in 28 years, ending L.A.’s hopes for its first title
LOS ANGELES >> Finally, shockingly, a Clippers comeback came up short.
None of the members of coach Tyronn Lue’s team — nor most of the 18,495 fans who filled Staples Center — found it easy to process, but the never-give-in Clippers at last ran out of gas Wednesday in Game 6 of the Western Conference finals.
After becoming the first team to rally successfully from 2-0 series deficits in one postseason, Tyronn Lue’s team had an opportunity Wednesday to push the second-seeded Phoenix Suns to a Game 7 in the Western Conference finals — a series in which, yes, the Clippers again spotted their opponent a 2-0 lead.
Playing their 15th day in 30 days, and their eighth consecutive contest without star Kawhi Leonard, the Clippers’ historic playoff run
ended with a 130-103 loss in Game 6 of the Western Conference finals.
They were victims of Chris Paul’s heroics, and of inevitable fatigue.
In his fourth game back after missing the first two of the series because of COVID-19 health and safety protocols, the former Clippers star equaled his career postseason high with 41 points to lift the Suns into their first NBA Finals appearance in 28 years — and the first of his 16 NBA seasons.
The Western Conference’s second seed will face either the Milwaukee Bucks or Atlanta Hawks, who are tied 2-2 in the Eastern Conference finals.
The Clippers reached the conference finals for the first time in the franchise’s 51-year history — helping wash away painful memories of last season’s 3-1 collapse against Denver in the second round of the playoffs.
This postseason, they remained poised — per Lue’s example — and avoided embarrassment after losing their first two games of the postseason to Luka Doncic’s Mavericks at home, storming back to even the series in Dallas.
“The thing that happened in the bubble, we lost — a lot of teams lost,” Lue said. “I just think leaving the bubble, leaving it behind, coming into this season, adapting, no excuses, next-man-up mentality, team mentality, I think those guys got through a lot of tough times all season just because of that.
“We have a tough, gritty group, sticking together and playing the way we played, things like this can happen. Hope we can build off this going into next season.”
Fresh off his season-saving, career-playoff-high 41-point effort two nights earlier, the Clippers’ Paul George was relatively stymied by a physical Suns defense.
George finished with 21 points on 6-of-15 shooting — and having logged 776 postseason minutes and carrying the brunt of the workload with Leonard sidelined with a knee sprain for the past eight games. Leonard was on the bench, where he was joined by centers Ivica Zubac (sprained right MCL) and Serge Ibaka (back surgery), none of them able to do more than watch.
“Very proud of my guys,” George said. “For all we had to overcome ... we found a
way to fight through, to play through, to keep playing we just had each other’s backs all year.”
Marcus Morris Sr. finished with a team-high 26 points and nine rebounds, Reggie Jackson had 13 points, and DeMarcus Cousins 12 (10 of which came in five first-half minutes.)
“I thought we ran out of gas,” Lue said. “I think it’s a shock to a lot of guys in that locker room, and that tells you a lot about the team — no matter who’s playing, every night we still feel like we have a chance to win. I thought we ran out of gas ... and the first thing that goes when you get tired and fatigue is mentally — in that first half we made a lot of mistakes.”
Emotions boiled over from gritty to out-of-bounds Wednesday as the game was getting away, with Clippers guard Patrick Beverley getting ejected after shoving Paul in the back. Before he left, the veteran guard gave the Clippers 11 points.
It was Paul’s 31-second half points that put a period out the Clippers’ uphill postseason push. His personal 8-0 run late in the third quarter set the stage and snuffed out the Clippers’ last challenge, which cut Phoenix’s lead to just seven. And then it was his 6-0 spurt to start the fourth that buffered the Suns’ lead to 20 points, 105-85, a deficit from which, for the first time, the 202021 Clippers couldn’t recover.
“It’s a special year,” said Jackson, who emerged as a fan favorite — and likely a hot free agent prospect — with his incessant good spirit all season, including in the playoffs when he averaged 18.1 points on 49.2% shooting from the field, and 41.5% from 3-point range.
“It (stinks) that we didn’t win it, but I’ll ride with those guys,” Jackson said, tears falling on his cheeks. “Those guys rode with me all year and I’ll ride with those guys. And that’s what makes this one tougher, makes this extremely tough. It’s been an extremely special year under these extreme, difficult circumstances that everybody’s been under with the pandemic, COVID, this core group is the one thing that allowed me to be myself and I’m forever thankful.”