Paul Pierce, Clippers Fall Short In Boston

Paul Pierce  and the Los Angeles Clippers fell short in overtime to the Celtics in Boston; the same place where Pierce played his first 15 seasons.

At the end of regulation, the Clippers had a chance to win the game by Deandre Jordan making his free throws.

You guessed correctly — Jordan missed them and the Celtics tied it up.

Then, Chris Paul and Jamal Crawford each had a chance to win the game by attempting a game winning three but their shots would not sink.

Crawford scored 18 points and J.J. Roddick scored 27 points.

You cannot blame Jordan for the loss, though.

He did score 21 points along with being 6-11 from the charity stripe.

If the Clippers were a great team, than they would have won this game in the first half.

What I mean by that is that you win the game by making impact plays in the first half and taking a big lead, build off of it, and therefore it is difficult for their opponent to catch up to that lead.

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By doing that, they would have won the game.

You have to put the blame on the whole team, because the Celtics would have not tied it up if the Clippers played defense and guarded the rim.

Even in the overtime period the Clippers had a chance to close it out, tie it up, or even win yet they came up short.

What the organization can take away from this performance is the Clippers need to learn how to close games out.

Come playoff time, if they are up and can’t close games out, then their opponent will have the opportunity to tie or even win the game and their goes the Clippers playoff chances.

Blake Griffin‘s incidents have nothing to do with this game.

They have been playing team basketball without him, winning multiple games, but they just can’t finish.

In a return to his first NBA team, Paul Pierce was not much of a factor at all; if anything, he was a ghost and only scored six points.

All though the Clippers lost, they still played team basketball.

Evidence of that is everyone but one teammate contributed points, with multiple players scoring in double figures.

Bottom Line: Paul Pierce couldn’t pull away.

Chris Paul once again was the leading scorer for the team — he had 25 points.

One major difference of the game, is the Clippers had more turnovers than the Celtics.

They had less fast break points and points in the paint but not by much.

Next: Kobe Bryant Left Out Of Top Ten All-Time By ESPN

One big distraction that might have cost the Clippers the loss in bean town is the technical foul by Lance Stephenson.