Round 2 Game 5: Clippers (3) AT Rockets (1)

[Forte IV]

Yeah and the only game we lost I give a pass to because we didn't have CP

[truth18]

Exactly. He's locked in. You set em up, Matt, Clipps knock em down

[Ranma]

[tweet]https://twitter.com/Ohmeomy/status/598619828757204992[/tweet]

J.A. Adande, ESPN (5/13/15)

The typical road-closeout formula goes like this: absorb the team's last act of desperation in the first quarter, then slowly squeeze them so deeply into submission that the prospect of coming back just to extend the inevitable doesn't seem worth the effort. The Clippers did the opposite. They subverted a shaky start by the Rockets -- including Dwight Howard's first foul 20 seconds into the game -- with dreadful shooting. The Clippers shot 30 percent in the first quarter, 2-for-11 on 3-pointers. They fell behind and stayed behind, Houston's confidence growing with every possession.
...

Juice, oomph, urgency. Whatever you want to call it, the Rockets had it and the Clippers lacked it.

So now this series is prolonged. That's the only way to describe it. An extra game doesn't feel like a gift, as Game 7 of the Clippers' first-round series with the Spurs was. This is more like a flight delay.
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Now the Clippers have another chance to continue their learning curve of these playoffs, another chance to show that they're ready to close.

But with the knowledge that they don't absolutely need to win Game 6 to win the series, what's to keep them from slacking off again?

"You look at, statistically, Game 7s on the road," Blake Griffin said. "Nobody wants to put themselves in that position. If we don't have a sense of urgency going home after already losing a game, then we'll be in trouble. But we'll be all right."

Home teams win 80 percent of Game 7s in the NBA. The Clippers might not know how to close yet, but they know they want to stay on the right side of the math. They have one more chance to live up to the even higher probability: Teams that take a 3-1 lead in an NBA playoff series go on to win the series 96 percent of the time. League history is on their side, even if their own past isn't.

Clippers Find Closing Tough in Playoffs


Arash Markazi, ESPNLosAngeles.com (5/13/15)

The problem is there is no way to manufacture desperation. The Clippers can say there is no momentum or carryover from one game to the next but it’s especially hard to muster up desperation against a team you’ve beaten by 33 and 25 points the previous two games and blew out by 16 without Paul to begin the series. The only real surprise going into Game 5 was that they weren’t able to hold on to a 13-point lead in the second half in Game 2 to set the stage for a sweep.
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“I know that’s not the team I’ve gotten accustomed to watching play,” Rivers said. “Now give [Houston] credit. I thought a lot of it was due to their pressure, but I just didn’t like how we played offense. I didn’t recognize a lot of the things we were running. I’m not sure what we were running. I have to watch the tape, but I didn’t like our offense at all.”
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As well as the Clippers have played in Game 7s, they realize they need to approach Thursday as their Game 7 and learn how to close out a team even if they’re technically not facing elimination. It’s a trait champions have and one the Clippers are still developing during a postseason in which they are seemingly growing each round.

Clippers Can't Muster the End Game

[mttwlsn16]

Matt. Make game 6 thread

done. And I actually just did it before seeing this haha