A great comeback often goes with a great choke. But this Monday evening, it is not the Clippers that we want to applaud in priority. The Pistons regaled by collapsing completely in money-time, losing their match despite a 14-point lead 3 minutes from the buzzer… Final score? 142 to 131 for Los Angeles.
It’s the hard law of youth, unfortunately.
When we are a very young team, without experience, and we face a team of darons? We can quickly take the lesson of the year, and go back to the locker room head down.
However, this Monday evening, the Pistons had enough to bend their chests. With a well-distributed brand, young and old contributing, and the Clippers totally on the pick-up, the public rose to applaud their players. In this fourth quarter at home, on an alley-oop from Jaden Ivey for Jalen Duren, the mass was said. Detroit took off, Tyronn Lue separated from its incumbents, and Californian reporters were already drawing their conclusions.
Worst defeat of the season. A basketball disgrace.
And it is true that at this precise moment, the Clippers were gone to end up on the main page of this site, with a spanking given on stage number one.
Three minutes to play, 14 points ahead for the Pistons, it’s over.
At least, in the heads and on the paper.
Because the sequel will turn into a real nightmare for Detroit, mixed with a waking dream for the Clippers.
Just how unlikely was the Clippers comeback once morest the Pistons?
Entering Monday, teams were 2-12,873 when trailing by 14+ with 3 minutes remaining in the play-by-play era (since 1996-97).
The Clippers were 0-417 in that scenario. pic.twitter.com/3xr52DW0BY
— ESPN Stats & Info (@ESPNStatsInfo) December 27, 2022
Motivated by a Nicolas Batum in his role as vocal leader, the visitors will start to really play basketball while the Pistons will … do the complete opposite. Stupid fouls, loss of balls, difficulty keeping up with the pressure, all the quality work done during 45 minutes went up in smoke while Terance Mann, Luke Kennard, Moses Brown and Amir Coffey puffed out their chests.
And on a scramble of free throws between Paul George and Killian Hayes, the improbable presented itself in front of Los Angeles: to send the match in overtime.
It was enough for Mann, who will equalize the score, extend the meeting in overtimeand let PG and company finish the job… like darons.
From 126 to 112 Detroit with 3 minutes to play… the final score will be 142 to 131 for the Clippers.
Yes yes, a 30 to 5 in 8 minutes, the kind of spanking that hurts, very badly for the morale of young people and good for the skull of old people.
That being said, this comeback should not erase the sad performance of LA so far, which should have lost the match and been corrected publicly. Faced with a team that was too young, the blow of the briscard passed. But that will not happen elsewhere, and these drops in concentration should not reassure many people.
Piston side? Not much to say, except that this kind of disaster is part of rebuilding franchise life, with no structure or established leadership to calm the troops down. So much the better for the Michigan kids who learned tonight that a match lasts 48 minutes and not 45, so much the better if we remove Dwane Casey from his current coaching position.
