The Los Angeles Clippers played quite well on Thursday evening and, as as result, they were able to outlast the San Antonio Spurs by a final score of 106-101. With the win, the team improved to 22-8 on the young season, and that should be the most important takeaway from the contest. However, the Clippers tried their damnedest to give the game away in the final minute with a sequence of utterly comedic inbounds passes.
With the Clippers leading 105-95 (after a made free throw from Pau Gasol), Los Angeles was set to inbound the ball for what was probably going to be the last possession of the contest. Clippers forward Wesley Johnson was unable to sneak the ball past the outstretched arm of Spurs forward Kyle Anderson, though, and the steal turned into a lay-up for Gasol in short order. From there, things got much weirder.
Johnson did not learn his lesson in any way, shape or form, and it showed. Less than two seconds before his initial blunder, Johnson uncorked what was basically a carbon copy of the first pass, and it was, again, stolen by Anderson who then quickly scored to bring the Spurs within six points. The audio from the Clippers’ own broadcast referred to the sequence as “silly” and as a set of plays never before seen, and Los Angeles was fortunate that these blunders did not come back to bite them in the form of a loss.
It didn’t “matter” in terms of the final result, but you can bet Wesley Johnson will be skewered in his team’s next film session.