Darren Collison scored 12 of 18 points in the fourth quarter as the Los Angeles Clippers rallied for a 101-99 win over the Oklahoma City Thunder in Game 4 of their NBA playoff series.
The unheralded Collinson shot seven of 12 from the field in Sunday’s victory, which knotted the best-of-seven Western Conference second-round series at 2-2.
Oklahoma City led by 22 points in the first quarter and by 16 points in the final period, but they could not contain the hard-charging Clippers when it mattered most.
Photo: USA Today
“We had to score and get stops, and we did that,” Clippers head coach Doc Rivers said. “It’s now a three-game series.”
The Clippers outscored the Thunder 52-32 in the paint during the Mother’s Day matinee in front of a crowd of 19,365 at the Staples Center.
Blake Griffin scored 25 points and grabbed nine rebounds for the Clippers, who are beginning to look like a battle-tested playoff team.
The Los Angeles side have never gone past the second round of the post-season.
The series now heads to Oklahoma City for Game 5 today.
Leads have been hard to hold onto in this series. The Thunder rallied to win Game 3, marking the first time in the regular season and playoffs that the Clippers lost a game at home when leading going into the fourth quarter.
The Thunder must now rebound at their Chesapeake Energy Arena.
They made the NBA finals two years ago, but did not advance past the second round last season after Russell Westbrook went down with a knee injury. Westbrook missed a three-point attempt at the buzzer on Sunday.
Griffin played the final 8 minutes, 44 seconds with five fouls and scored 10 of his points down the stretch for the Clippers.
Chris Paul finished with 23 points, 10 assists and just one turnover for Los Angeles.
“We finally made a lot of defensive plays that got our offense going,” Collison said.
NBA Most Valuable Player Kevin Durant scored 40 points, but also committed eight of the Thunder’s 16 turnovers.
Westbrook finished with 27 points and eight assists for the Thunder, who appeared to be cruising with a 16-point lead with 9:19 remaining, before allowing the Clippers to hit 13 of their last 16 shots.
Westbrook scored a basket out of a timeout in the final moments. That was followed by a Griffin miss that gave the Thunder one last shot, but Westbrook’s try from behind the three-point line hit the rim as the horn sounded.
“I had a good look, but it didn’t go in,” Westbrook said. “It’s a tough loss, but its a series. We’ll go back home and take care of business.”
Bayer 04 Leverkusen go into today’s match at TSG 1899 Hoffenheim stung from their first league defeat in 16 months. Leverkusen were beaten 3-2 at home by RB Leipzig before the international break, the first loss since May last year for the reigning league and cup champions. While any defeat, particularly against a likely title rival, would have disappointed coach Xabi Alonso, the way in which it happened would be most concerning. Just as they did in the Supercup against VfB Stuttgart and in the league opener to Borussia Moenchengladbach, Leverkusen scored first, but were pegged back. However, while Leverkusen rallied late to
Taiwanese badminton superstar Lee Yang broke down in tears after publicly retiring from the sport on Sunday. The two-time Olympic gold medalist held a retirement ceremony at the Taipei Arena after the final matches of the Taipei Open. Accompanied by friends, family and former badminton partners, Lee burst into tears while watching a video celebrating key moments in his professional sporting career that also featured messages from international players such as Malaysia’s Teo Ee Yi, Hong Kong’s Tang Chun-man, and Indonesia’s Mohammad Ahsan and Hendra Setiawan. “I hope that in the future when the world thinks about me, they will
Former Formosa Dreamers player Ilkan Karaman was killed in a traffic accident in Datca, Turkey, Turkish media reported yesterday. He was 34. The former Turkish national team player was reportedly hit by a car, the driver of which was allegedly drunk, while he was standing on a sidewalk, Turkish newspaper Sozcu reported. Karaman and his friends were on their way to the beach town of Dalaman to go scuba diving when they stopped at a gas station to buy gasoline, it reported. Karaman was hit by the car while waiting on a sidewalk as his friends were buying gasoline, it
If all goes well when the biggest marathon field ever gathered in Australia races 42km through the streets of Sydney on Sunday, World Marathon Majors (WMM) will soon add a seventh race to the elite series. The Sydney Marathon is to become the first race since Tokyo in 2013 to join long-established majors in New York, London, Boston, Berlin and Chicago if it passes the WMM assessment criteria for the second straight year. “We’re really excited for Sunday to arrive,” race director Wayne Larden told a news conference in Sydney yesterday. “We’re prepared, we’re ready. All of our plans look good on
RSS