Article about the Clippers @ Rockets

stefanb · Mar 5, 2012

Here's an article about the game against the clippers on march 4th. Thought there were some interesting quotes from Martin, Lowry, and Paul.

Of all the times Chris Paul has beaten the Rockets, all the late-game jumpers and last-minute passes that left them defeated and demoralized, rarely has he tormented them as he did Sunday at Toyota Center.

This time, he left them just enough room to think they had found the answer. The Rockets thought the game was theirs when Courtney Lee smothered Paul, sending the game into overtime.

They thought they had a breakthrough when they led by three with 94 seconds left. Mostly, they believed they had the answer when Kevin Martin launched his 3-pointer in the closing seconds.

Terrence Williams began a sprint to celebrate. Kyle Lowry was certain the shot was good. Martin said it felt “perfect.”

But when it smacked the rim and bounced away, the Los Angeles Clippers sent the Rockets to a third consecutive defeat, 105-103 in overtime, and Paul had again done just enough to be more than they could handle.

“The guy keeps the ball in his hand, and he does a lot of stuff,” Rockets coach Kevin McHale said. “We tried changing up. He’s very, very clever. You try to change up on him and give him different looks, but the bottom line is he makes a lot of plays.”

Paul scored the final four Clippers points of regulation, then scored or set up their final five points of overtime, passing to Blake Griffin to set up a slam, then pulling up off the dribble to put the Clippers ahead with 50.6 seconds left.

The Rockets got nothing out of their next two possessions. Griffin stole Martin’s inbounds pass when Martin tried to force the ball in to Samuel Dalembert to run the play as called, though he had timeouts left. Paul turned the ball over, but Martin missed from 22 feet.

Forced to foul to stop the clock, the Rockets sent Paul to the line with 4.9 seconds left. He made just one of two free throws, leaving the Rockets within two.

Costly miscues

“When you have a team like that and you got them on the ropes, you just can’t have any mistakes,” McHale said. “We had a couple down the stretch, and it hurt us.”

The Rockets again got the ball to Martin, who had 25 points and matched his career high with eight assists. But his shot was off all night. When he missed his last attempt, he was 0-for-4 in overtime and 6-of-22 for the game.

“Loved it,” Martin said of the shot he got. “I think it was a glimpse of how the night went for me shooting-wise. The shot was off a centimeter, which resulted in a missed shot, which resulted in a loss.

Feeling it

“I was just going to do whatever the defense gave me. I thought the dribble 3 was there. Everything felt good about it.”

The Rockets felt as confident when they were able to force overtime with a strong charge through the last four minutes of the fourth quarter. Lee, who had 13 points, hit a corner 3 and finished a drive. Luis Scola, who had 16 points and 12 rebounds, twice scored on offensive rebounds. Martin put in a jumper for a Rockets lead with less than a minute remaining.

But Paul put the Clippers in front with 25.1 seconds left. He cleared space on Lowry, hitting his jumper while Lowry tried to draw the offensive foul.

“Guys tend to flop every time I do that move,” Paul said. “I might have bumped him.”

Dalembert was fouled inside but missed his first free throw before tying the game with 18 seconds left.

Five more minutes

The Rockets switched Lee to Paul, and he cut off Paul’s drive. By the time Paul sank his fadeaway jumper, it was after the buzzer, and the game was headed to overtime.

Given another five minutes, Paul did just enough, and the Rockets came up one shot short.

“It hurts a lot,” Lowry said. “Every little thing is going to stick out. I missed free throws. Kevin’s last 3 didn’t go in. … It’s one of those tough games where one little thing turns it a different way.”

jonathan.feigen@chron.com

twitter.com/jonathan_feigen
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Here's the link to the article. It also has a really good picture slideshow of the game, http://blog.chron.com/ultimaterocke...-ot-cp3-sends-rockets-to-third-straight-loss/

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Article about the Clippers @ Rockets

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