Clippers Stun Warriors With PlayOff-Record Rally News

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Clippers Stun Warriors With PlayOff-Record Rally

By Daily Sports on April 17, 2019

At halftime Monday, with his team trailing the Golden State Warriors by 23 points on the road, LA Clippers coach Doc Rivers tried to instill confidence in his players.

“That we were going to win,” Rivers said. “Just hang in there. Just hang in there long enough. I was honest with them. I said, ‘I don’t know how’. I said, ‘We’re going to figure this out, but just hang in there with each other’.”

His team would trail by as many as 31 points in Game 2 of its Western Conference first-round series against the Warriors at Oracle Arena, but, just as he said, the Clippers hung in there and came all the way back to win 135-131 in what became the biggest postseason comeback in NBA history.

“We stopped playing,” Warriors coach Steve Kerr said. “We kind of disconnected kind of mid-third quarter, lost our defensive edge. They scored 85 points in the second half. We had really done a good job defensively in the first half. So we kind of messed with the game a little bit. When you do that, you’re in some trouble, especially in the playoffs.”

The 85 points that the Clippers scored in the second half are the second most in the second half of a playoff game in NBA history behind the Milwaukee Bucks’ 87 points in Game 3 of the 1978 Western Conference semifinals against the Denver Nuggets, according to ESPN Stats & Information research.

Before Game 2 against the Clippers on Monday, Kerr talked about the possibility of a letdown with his team already ahead one game in the first-round series.

“You warn them,” Kerr said of his players. “You warn them and you hope for the best.”

But what unfolded next at Oracle Arena will go down as a letdown that the Warriors won't soon forget – nor will anyone else. (ESPN)

•Photo shows Clippers players

Source Daily Sports

Posted April 17, 2019