Collapses in the second half have been a staple of the Los Angeles Clippers this season, and naturally also been something I regularly harp on. In my previous Diary of a Clips Fan last Thursday, I blogged about the game against the New Orleans Hornets being close and prophetically (sarcasm) warned that another loss could be avoided if LA would only play well in the final 24 minutes. Naturally, the Clippers – who actually were ahead 50-46 at halftime – came out for the third and fourth quarters and got outscored 62-50 and lost 108-100.
Hardly a ray of sunshine for both the players and fans alike, so when last night’s game against the Milwaukee Bucks had the Clippers up 52-43, I wasn’t about to count on a win.
True to form, Milwaukee came out shooting in the third quarter, led by Compton’s Brandon Jennings and outscored LA by 11, including 16 in the quarter from Jennings. The AP noted that “Milwaukee closed that period with an 18-2 run, erasing a 16-point Clippers lead to go up 74-72.”
Milwaukee had came in on a six-game winning streak and won 12 of their last 13 overall and of course the Clippers were losers of their previous eight games. The stage was set for the Clippers to fold once again and I was prepping for another downtrodden blog post.
And then the clouds parted, the Sun shined through and the basketball gods decided to flip the Clippers’ fate (I’m just kidding with the dramatics), but seriously, it was as if they had forgotten that March Madness was supposed to start on the 18th, not the 17th and accidentally brought some craziness one day early.
Heck, some of you would even argue that the Clippers play below an NBA-level, so you can call last night’s 101-93 win a minor Cinderella story.
Yeah, yeah, I know I’m getting ahead of myself with all this excitement, but when you follow this franchise as much as I do, you gotta savor your small victories. The Clippers can now enjoy their three-day break and chase back to back wins Sunday against the lowly Sacramento Kings. They face the Dallas Mavericks and Houston Rockets after that, so if you’re like me, you better bask in this temporary glory while it’s still here.
-Will.
“Diary of a Clippers Fan” will be published Mondays and Thursdays during the regular season.
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