The Clippers bounced back from the one-point loss against the Thunder two days ago by defeating the same team convincingly (127-105).
Los Angeles missed Paul George who was out with a knee injury, but controlled the game for the most part. Kawhi Leonard (32 points) and Russell Westbrook (24 points) led the charge for the Clippers.
Josh Giddey, who scored 18 points for Oklahoma City, talked about what went wrong for his team in the second half that led to the loss.
“First half was tied at the break,” Giddey said. “They made some tough shots. Kawhi was obviously hot early on. I think for the most part we did a good job on him. He hit a lot of tough shots. I don’t think he missed many for the game.
“I think overall our defense was alright. But at the end of that third quarter I think we collapsed too much. Kawhi drew so much attention. Guys were getting sucked into it, they were spreading out and hitting threes.
“When they made that run, we had to put stops at the start of the fourth. But they blew the game open. And once we were down 20 points with minutes to go, the game was out of each. I think first half was alright, but second half it’s a lot of things we could have cleaned up.”
The Thunder (36-37) is still in the race for a postseason spot. With 9 regular season games left to play, OKC is 11th in the Western Conference.
Meanwhile, the Clippers (39-35) are fifth in the West.
