The Los Angeles Clippers have been in a dog fight for homecourt advantage in the Western Conference all season long and finally had the chance to overtake Portland Trail Blazers for the fourth seed on Monday when they went into The Barclays Center against the Brooklyn Nets, who were 18-28 heading into the contest.
The Nets, however, provided an unexpected fight all game long before seemingly folding in the fourth quarter as they so often do with a nine-point deficit with 1:25 left in the contest. Amazingly, they came all the way back as the Clippers inexplicably failed to do a number of basic things like grabbing a defensive rebound or staying away from fouling a 3-point shooter down the stretch. Ultimately, Los Angeles allowed four 3-pointers (one of them a four-point play from Alan Anderson) in that final 1:25 stretch and this vintage Jarrett Jack shot:
Jack was just two-of-10 from the field with four points prior to that game-winner over DeAndre Jordan. Any time a great ball handler like Jack ends up in a mismatch situation (why Jordan and Chris Paul switched on Brook Lopez’s screen is anyone’s guess, given how easy it was for Paul to get over the screen with so much time left on the clock) though, you know he is going to embrace that moment and that’s precisely what he did.
Jack also got a rare reaction out of former teammate Klay Thompson, who thoroughly enjoyed the conclusion against a division rival team in the Clippers:
J jack had him on skates for the win!
— klay thompson (@KlayThompson) February 3, 2015
Thompson described it as how most who were watching the game would, but “had him on skates” is always a bit of a belittling way to describe any defender, and nothing gets lost when you’re talking about the Golden State Warriors and Clippers. We’ll see if this causes any more fire than there already is between them. The teams have split the first two games of the season and will see each other two more times in March.
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Jim Park is a blogger and editor of Sheridan Hoops. Follow him on twitter @SheridanBlog.