In a tale of two halves, the Clippers start with a dreadful first but end on an aggressive, heroic, poetic second half to beat the Wizards 116-115.
Clippers dug themselves into an early hole, trailing 19-4 just seven minutes into the game. And while the typically notorious defense struggled early on, it was actually aggression from the NBA’s 27th ranked offense rating that brought the deficit back down to more manageable territory. The Wizards lead, which peaked at 18 points, was cut in half as the Clippers entered the second quarter trialling 32-23.
When the Clippers’ offense stalled at the start of the second quarter, however, the Wizards took advantage of the Clippers’ inability to string together consecutive and consistent stops on defense to rain down threes and bring the lead back up to 19 points.