Paul George, Clippers stumble against Kings

All bully things travel to a, well, you know.

With Saturday’s 104-99 defeat, the Clippers mislaid a crippled for the archetypal clip successful 16 trips to Sacramento and, what’s more, they remained winless successful the 2nd crippled of a back-to-back, 0 for 4 truthful acold this season.

They Clippers trailed 90-76 with 7:23 to play, but they characteristically chipped away, closing to to 95-92, buoyed partially by escaped throws from 3 throws from Marcus Morris Sr., 2 from Luke Kennard and an Ivica Zubac tip-in.

A 3-pointer from Terence Davis gave the Kings backmost a spot of their buffer with 2:48 to play, aft which neither squad scored again until Davis sank a brace of escaped throws with 1:38 remaining, pushing Sacramento’s vantage to 100-92.

Davis — a 7.1 points-per-game contributor coming into Saturday’s crippled — continued to punish the Clippers, against whom helium dropped 23 Wednesday night. His encore was adjacent much spectacular; helium scored a season-high and game-high 28 points Saturday.

“He conscionable had a bully crippled — 2 large games,” Clippers Coach Tyronn Lue said. “He’s a bully subordinate … Very aggressive, we cognize helium tin people the basketball. Did not cognize that helium could sprout the shot the mode helium did tonight, but, he’s a bully player. And contiguous helium wounded us.”

Despite his outsized output, the Clippers managed to support anticipation until precise late.

On a gliding layup from Reggie Jackson with 32.2 seconds left, the Clippers drew wrong 101-96. Jackson missed the ensuing escaped propulsion and Morris was called for a foul warring for the rebound, giving the shot backmost to Sacramento — astatine slightest momentarily, earlier a palmy coach’s situation resulted successful a treble foul, assessing different connected De’Aaron Fox (17 points).

That acceptable up a leap ball, which Zubac tipped to Morris, giving possession backmost to the Clippers.

But aft a timeout, they came up bare connected a lob effort to Paul George, and Fox, who was fouled with 24.2 seconds remaining, made 1 of 2 from the free-throw line.

And still, L.A. had life: Morris — who scored a team-high 21 points and grabbed a season-high 9 rebounds — drained a 30-footer to chopped Sacramento’s pb successful half, 102-99.

But Jackson was forced to fouled Buddy Hield (10 points, six less than his average) to halt the timepiece and helium sank some of his escaped throws to seal the eight-year-long-streak-busting win.

George had 1 of his worst shooting nights of the season, going 5 for 21 from the tract en way to 15 points, though helium added 10 assists (and 5 turnovers). Jackson besides struggled, shooting 7 for 19 for 18 points.

Playing their 5th crippled successful 7 days, the Clippers (12-12) could person utilized much successful enactment of Morris, who again was efficient, shooting 7 for 10 and 4 for 6 from 3-point page.

Zubac notched his seventh double-double, finishing with 12 points and 11 rebounds. Off the bench, Kennard chipped successful with 12 points.

“The docket hasn’t been to our favor, aboriginal on,” Lue said. “We cognize that, we recognize that, but conscionable immoderate of the intelligence mistakes, we got to bash a amended occupation of cleaning up … It is what it is. I thought our guys battled and competed, they conscionable person much successful the tank. They executed a small amended than we did.

“And then, archetypal half, I conscionable thought offensively we got immoderate missed opportunities erstwhile guys are open. The aforesaid plays we made past night, we didn’t marque tonight. Just got to support showing these guys and proceed to support moving connected it and making the close play.”

And though the Clippers held the Kings (10-14) to their ninth-lowest-scoring crippled this play successful beforehand of 15,004 fans astatine Golden 1 Center, they couldn’t conjure up capable discourtesy of their ain to capitalize. It was the eighth clip this play the Clippers failed to people astatine slightest 100 points.

The Clippers rode momentum into the game, caller disconnected Friday night’s 119-115 triumph implicit the Lakers into their rematch with Sacramento. They mislaid to the Kings 124-115 connected Wednesday astatine Staples Center, a triumph that evened Sacramento’s grounds astatine 3-3 since Luke Walton was fired and Alvin Gentry took implicit arsenic coach.

But what started arsenic a sprint Saturday rapidly became a slog.

The Clippers got disconnected to a promising start, shooting 11 for 23 from the tract and 6 for 10 from 3-point scope successful the archetypal 4th to support up with the pace-pushing Kings, who hadn’t played since Wednesday.

They finished the archetypal framework tied, 29-29, but their discourtesy stalled successful the 2nd quarter, erstwhile they changeable conscionable 4 for 22 from the field, and 1 for 10 from heavy and endured a six-minute scoring lull and inactive someway went into halftime down conscionable 50-45.

Lue started Serge Ibaka beside Zubac for the 3rd game, but helium inserted Terance Mann successful Ibaka’s spot to commencement the 2nd half. Ibaka didn’t play astatine each aft halftime, finishing with 2 points successful 12 minutes. Mann finished with 9 points connected 3-for-7 shooting.

L.A. autochthonal Chimezie Metu (USC) finished with 5 points — and a career-high 5 blocks.

More to travel connected this story.