LOS ANGELES (News4usonline) – The biggest loss for the Los Angeles Clippers in their Western Conference matchup against the Oklahoma City Thunder at Crypto.com Arena may not have been on the scoreboard. Paul George, having another all-around great season for the Clippers, went down with a knee injury during the fourth quarter.
The scariest part was that George had to be helped off the court instead of walking out on his own. His status is to be determined. But with the regular season coming to a close and the postseason being around the corner, the Clippers can ill-afford to lose George, who has been averaging nearly 24 points (23.8), 6.1 rebounds and 5.1 assists per game.

“Just off the top, sending the whole team and organization thoughts to Paul George,” OKC head coach Mark Daigneault said after the game. “He was here, great person and we hope he is okay.”
Without George being out on the floor at the end of the game and with Terance Mann being unavailable after getting tossed via ejection earlier, that put the onus on Kawhi Leonard to bail the team out in a tight game with the Thunder.
Leonard, who scored a team-high 21 points, was not able to deliver as the Clippers (38-35) suffered their 35th defeat of the season.
The Clippers couldn’t get their offense untracked in the fourth quarter in a home game against the Oklahoma City Thunder. The Clippers made just 8 of 22 shots from the field (36%) and converted only one of the six attempts from behind the arc in the final period and wound up scoring 19 points.
“We know this team gives up the most catch-and-shoot threes in the league,” Clippers head coach Tyronn Lue said. “So, when you get to the paint it’s probably going to be three or four guys there, so just making the right play. And I thought in the second half we tried to do that. Starting the game out we did a good job with it, and then after the first six to seven minutes we got very ball-dominant, very stagnant, didn’t move the basketball.”
The Thunder outscored the Clippers by two points in the fourth quarter (21-19) and that was your ballgame. As a result of their shooting woes, the Clippers fell in defeat to the Thunder, 101-100. But it was not just the fourth quarter where the Clippers’ offense stalled.
Los Angeles managed to score 30 or more points in a quarter just once. Lue was dissatisfied with the energy his team played with the whole night.
“I just didn’t think we played right the whole night offensively,” Lue said after the game. “We played too slow. We didn’t share the basketball the right way. Our coaches say we got some open threes we didn’t make, but just the flow of the game was nasty because we didn’t play the right way and we played slow. We didn’t move the basketball. We didn’t get to the second side. And so, when we don’t play a good brand of basketball these are the results you get.”
When it came to the fourth quarter, the Clippers’ top three players in Leonard (four points), George (six points), and Russell Westbrook (two points) combined to tally 12 of the team’s 19 points.
With the playing status of George up in the air, Leonard’s thought about the team’s next few games is about getting the job no matter who is out on the court. “Next man up,” Leonard remarked. “We’ll see. We got a group of guys that still want to win. They like to play basketball, so we’ll see what happens.”

Dennis has covered and written about politics, crime, race, sports, and entertainment. Dennis currently covers the NFL, MLB, NBA, NCAA, and Olympic sports. Dennis is the editor of News4usonline.com and serves as the publisher of the Compton Bulletin newspaper. He earned a journalism degree from Howard University. Email Dennis at dfreeman@news4usonline.com
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