Kawhi Leonard and Clippers can’t keep pace with Celtics in crunch time

The final time the Clippers confronted Boston, in a victory that lastly outlined their appreciable potential, the Celtics didn’t have the scale to maintain the Clippers out of the paint.

Needing late baskets to finish a comeback Thursday, the Clippers had been denied on the rim, twice, within the remaining moments.

After a jumper by Kawhi Leonard lower the result in three with 62 seconds left, a defensive cease by the Clippers arrange Paul George to dribble into the lane on the opposite finish, the amount quickly speeding out of TD Backyard. Derrick White, a guard, met George as he rose and stuffed George’s shot.

Then with two seconds left, Clippers ahead Marcus Morris Sr. tried a layup with the Clippers down 5 — a shot rejected by Al Horford, a loss sealed.

The Clippers fell to 21-16 after a 116-110 loss to Boston.

Leonard scored 26 factors and George added 24 for the Clippers, who end their five-game street journey Saturday in Indiana.

With every roster at full energy, this matchup offered itself as a late-December preview of what would possibly materialize in early June.

The Clippers stayed absolutely wholesome for half 1 / 4.

An elbow from Celtics guard Derrick White crashed into Reggie Jackson’s nostril, opening a bleeding wound. When the play didn’t lead to a foul on White, Jackson confronted lead official Scott Foster earlier than being restrained by teammates and earned a technical within the course of. When he returned, it was with a bandage on his nostril.

Then, chasing a sequence of Boston passes that whipped the ball across the perimeter for a three-pointer late within the first quarter, Nicolas Batum rolled his left ankle. The one Clipper to have appeared in each recreation this season, Batum returned from the locker room with further tape and examined the ankle’s viability throughout a halftime warmup however didn’t play once more till the ultimate two minutes of the third quarter following foul bother to beginning heart Ivica Zubac.

Not like in the course of the Clippers’ 20-point win three weeks earlier, Celtics huge males Robert Williams and Al Horford each performed — chopping off the avenues to the paint the Clippers took benefit in opposition to when Blake Griffin began at heart. George took one shot contained in the paint in his first 17 minutes. Leonard had one paint shot within the first quarter and one true rim try in his 18 first-half minutes. After the 6-foot-9 Williams checked in late within the first half, reuniting him in a lineup with the 6-9 Horford, the Clippers didn’t rating a discipline purpose for 2 minutes.

It was their emphasis to persistently assault the rim out of a timeout, going through a 13-point deficit that was their largest of the evening, that started a surge that carried into the second half, an 11-point halftime deficit remodeled right into a one-point lead after George’s three-pointer halfway by means of the third quarter.

Coach Tyronn Lue turned to his starters for a lot of the evening, even plugging Jackson again into the lineup with 6:46 to play, trailing by three, despite the fact that one in all Jackson’s ankles had been rolled on high of by a Celtic earlier within the recreation. The autumn left Jackson with a substantial limp. The rotation decisions meant Luke Kennard performed 16 minutes — his final stint ending when the Celtics regularly focused him on protection, clearly seeing his matchup as one on which they might rating, normally with Jaylen Brown. Terance Mann additionally performed 5 minutes, none after halftime.