LOS ANGELES — One way or another, the Clippers will be returning to Los Angeles on Wednesday.
They have one more game to decide whether that trip home will precede a sixth game in their first-round playoff series, or to clean out their lockers for the season.
By losing 112-100 to Phoenix at Crypto.com Arena on Saturday, the Clippers are down to their last gasp, a first-round exit looming for a franchise that began this season with championship dreams. Game 5 is Tuesday in Phoenix.
Russell Westbrook scored 37 points to lead the Clippers, but with Kawhi Leonard missing a second consecutive game because of his sprained right knee, and Paul George also sidelined by a sprained right knee, there again was not enough offensive firepower to match the Suns.
Kevin Durant finished with 31 points, 11 rebounds and six assists, Devin Booker scored 30 with nine rebounds and seven assists, and Chris Paul (19 points, nine assists) put away his former team with big shots in the fourth quarter.
Saddled by foul trouble, Norman Powell managed just 14 points for the Clippers.
Phoenix coach Monty Williams had relied heavily on his stars during the first three games of the series, with Booker averaging 44 minutes, Durant more than 43 and Paul 39. Booker had played all but 41 seconds in the second half of the first three games. The Clippers hoped that was too many, tying their hopes to the strategy that had nearly worked two days earlier while playing five guards in nearly the entire fourth quarter of Game 3, wearing down Phoenix's All-Stars with what was supposed to be their season-long strength of depth.
"We got to run them out the gym," reserve guard Bones Hyland had said Friday. "So we definitely taken that, you know, into consideration."
Coach Tyronn Lue tried another strategic shift, as well, starting Marcus Morris Sr. for the first time since he lost his place in the rotation on March 25. The teammate who'd replaced him, Nicolas Batum, had made just one of his eight shots in the playoffs, however, and Lue went back to Morris as a starter. Morris was not a catalyst, making three of his 13 shots, but Lue's willingness to "go to anything" for a spark eventually found one.
The Clippers' lead reached 11 with 10 minutes before halftime, behind lineups again littered with small guards. Yet midway through the second quarter the Suns had rallied to force a tie.
This was not the result of assistance from officials, as several Clippers had bemoaned after Game 3. This edge was lost through their own doing. It wasn't only that the Clippers committed 10 first-half turnovers, including eight in the second quarter. It was that virtually all were the live-ball variety — a basketball cardinal sin.
When Lue inserted the rarely used Robert Covington into the lineup in the third quarter, the Clippers' rotation expanded to 10. Yet even as the Suns became the sloppier team, they were also the better at making the possessions they did have count.
In the third quarter Phoenix drew 10 free throws to the Clippers' two and made 66% of their shots to enter the final 12 minutes leading by five. Within the fourth quarter's first minute, Powell was whistled for his fifth foul.
As Powell, who had scored 42 points two days earlier, sat, Westbrook took it upon himself to not let Phoenix pull away easily, or pull its starters early.
Trailing 91-83 with eight minutes left, Westbrook scored the Clippers' next 10 points, a mixture of 3-pointers and short jumpers, to cut the deficit to four points with 5:24 to play.
When the Clippers stopped making shots, Phoenix did not, with Paul hitting a wild 3-pointer along the baseline, then sealed it with a midrange jump shot for a 13-point lead in the final minutes.
