With time running out and the game knotted up at 87 in regulation Wednesday night, Chris Paul missed a bank shot. DeAndre Jordan grabbed the loose ball … and just stood there.
A livid CP3 yelled at his bewildered teammate to put a potential game-winning shot, but it was too late.
(It wasn’t all bad news for Paul, who scored 36 points and made history with one of his 12 assists.)
Behind Nicolas Batum’s breakout 20-point performance, the visiting Portland Trail Blazers earned a tough 98-93 overtime win against the LA Clippers.
Per the AP:
Batum hit a 3-pointer that forced overtime, then set up three alley-oop baskets and added a clinching 3 in the final minute to rally the Trail Blazers past the Los Angeles Clippers 98-93 on Wednesday night. […] “Nobody’s been harder on Nic than Nic,” (Blazers) coach Terry Stotts said. “He just wants to play well and he’s put a lot of pressure on himself to have a game like he just had against a quality team and to make big plays. He was able to be a facilitator, which is something that just makes us a deeper team.”
“We all know that (Damian) Lillard’s a great scorer, and tonight just wasn’t his night. But we found a way to make big plays, especially at the end of the fourth and overtime,” Batum said. “My job with this team the last three years has been to do a little bit of everything on the court. I can assist, rebound and score. We knew we had a good matchup on the pick-and-roll with LaMarcus and me, so we tried to take advantage of it.” […] Lillard was 1 for 13 from the field, finishing with five points, five turnovers and a career-high 18 rebounds in 43 minutes. The third-year guard missed his first 12 shots before making a layup off a lob pass from Batum to give the Blazers a 91-89 edge with 3:04 left in overtime.
“We have to play better team defense, because down the stretch is where we let up,” Paul said. […] “We made a lot of mistakes down the stretch,” (Clippers head coach Doc) Rivers said. “We gave up a couple of bad 3-pointers. That can never happen. In the last few possessions of the game, we stopped defending.”
