With 3:13 left in the third quarter in Portland, LA Clippers head coach Tyronn Lue had to call a timeout. Portland Trail Blazers guard Anfernee Simons had just made his fifth 3 of the quarter — his eighth of the game — to put the home team Trail Blazers up 91-73. Lue had yet to make a substitution to break up his starting lineup of Reggie Jackson, Amir Coffey, Terance Mann, Marcus Morris Sr. and Ivica Zubac.
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It was getting late quite early because the Clippers were on the front end of a difficult back-to-back. The Clippers had to catch a flight for the second night against the Utah Jazz, and this was the most short-handed the Clippers were all season. The inactive list for the Clippers included Kawhi Leonard, Paul George, Luke Kennard and John Wall.
Brandon Boston Jr. was on assignment in the G League and hadn’t played in 19 days due to a thigh bruise suffered while playing for the Ontario Clippers. Lue’s team was so short-handed that they recalled point guard Jason Preston and rookie two-way contract Moussa Diabaté to join the team in Portland.
Something just clicked in the timeout. Lue subbed in former Trail Blazers Nicolas Batum and Norman Powell, who was on his first game back in Portland after the February trade that brought him and Robert Covington to the Clippers. Batum missed a 3 out of the timeout, but Zubac drew a loose-ball foul on Simons to extend the possession.
From there, Powell beat Jerami Grant on a drive and finished over Portland center Drew Eubanks. And that is how the latest great Clippers comeback commenced.
Over the last 15 minutes of the game, the Clippers outscored the Trail Blazers 45-21 and completed a comeback victory, 118-112. It was the second straight win for the Clippers without both Leonard and George in the lineup, but this was quite unlike the Sunday win against the Indiana Pacers at home which was dominated by Zubac in the paint and on the boards. This time, Powell led a perimeter assault from the bench — and Lue had to break out his adjustment of playing from behind without Zubac.
“Great team effort,” Wall told The Athletic in a text after the game. “Everybody chipped in.”
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There were levels to this comeback, and as Wall said, it required all 11 available players at some point. It started with some ex-Blazers, was sustained by a point guard that keeps getting up, and was punctuated by a player who had never contributed to a Clippers win before.
Norman Powell #RevengeGame achieved
The revenge game or reunion game narrative is always a fun one to track. Powell was asked on media day if there were any games he had circled on his schedule.
“I’m excited about every matchup and every team,” Powell said in September. “There’s not one team that I have circled, probably besides the Raptors, on my schedule when I look at it. But besides that, I’m looking forward to playing against everybody.”
Powell had a smile on his face when mentioning his original team, the Toronto Raptors, who traded Powell to Portland in the middle of the 2020-21 season. Powell will have to wait until Dec. 27 for his return to Toronto. But in the meantime, he still has a house that he is trying to sell in Portland. And after this performance, he might own some real estate in the Trail Blazers’ heads.
The Clippers trailed Portland 95-82 entering the fourth quarter. Powell outscored the Trail Blazers by himself 22-17 in the final period. That’s the most points by Powell in any quarter of his career, and the most by any Clipper in a fourth quarter in the play-by-play era (since 1996-97).
Over the last 15 minutes of the game, the Trail Blazers made as many shots on 28 field goal attempts (8) as Powell made on 10 field goal attempts. Powell started a 12-0 game-tying Clippers run early in the fourth quarter with three unanswered baskets that forced Portland head coach Chauncey Billups to call a timeout with 8:58 left in the game.
But it was too late. Powell gave Portland his entire platter of offense: drawing a transition take foul, getting a go-ahead and-1 that happened to be Grant’s fifth foul, and nailing a game-tying 3 from Morris. Powell came off the bench and led the Clippers with 32 points overall — the entire Portland bench scored only 11 points.
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The RICO is back
Earlier in November, Batum was asked about being on the floor with Covington.
“I know sometimes they call it the ‘RICO’ — Nico and RoCo back, the RICO is back,” Batum said. “I like to play with RoCo. We play well together. We can really mix it up.”
The only problem was that the Batum/Covington lineups hadn’t been successful prior to Tuesday night in Portland. The Clippers were outscored 237-222 in the 101 minutes that the former Portland forwards shared the floor. In Portland, though, the two were pivotal in keeping the game close in the first half and contributing to the comeback in the second half.
Covington scored 11 of his season-high 15 points in the first half, with three 3s and a baseline dunk that had the injured Damian Lillard reacting. The Clippers went on a 9-0 run with Covington and Batum up front together in place of Zubac and backup center Moses Brown.
Batum’s only basket of the game was a huge, go-ahead 3 with 2:37 left to play. Batum also had a huge block on Simons to protect a 115-112 lead with 31.3 seconds left. Simons missed nine of his last 10 shots, after starting the game 12-of-14 from the field and 8-of-10 from 3.
Overall, the Clippers outscored the Trail Blazers 46-36 in the 17 minutes that Covington and Batum shared the floor.
Jackson goes full 24 after halftime
There were two notable events for Jackson in the first half.
In the first quarter, Jackson was relieved by Preston, who was getting the first rotation minutes of his career and scored his first career points, a 3-pointer after Jusuf Nurkić gave him too much space.
.@Treballjay11 for three! pic.twitter.com/gUHvvHEGvd
— LA Clippers (@LAClippers) November 30, 2022
Late in the second quarter, Jackson was subbed out after taking a hard fall following a successful drive. It looked like Jackson would struggle to finish the game after staying down, and he rested the final 49 seconds of the first half.
But Jackson plays through everything if nothing is broken or torn. Jackson kept the Clippers close in the third quarter, scoring 13 of his 24 points. The buckets ran out for Jackson in the fourth quarter, as he missed all five shots. But he compiled a 7:1 assist-turnover ratio in the fourth quarter. And Jackson played all 24 second-half minutes. He even drew a charge on Grant with 3:52 left to play, ending Grant’s night with 32 points and six fouls.
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“Whatever it takes to get the W,” Jackson told The Athletic after the game.
Welcome, Diabaté
I mentioned in last week’s mailbag that the Clippers were pleased with how far Diabaté had come in his development with the Ontario Clippers in the G League. But the Clippers hadn’t used Diabaté on game days, opting to keep him in the G League for his development and using Brown as the emergency center. Diabaté only played six minutes, all at the end of a pair of garbage-time losses, prior to the start of the G League season.
The Clippers needed a center to complete the comeback in Portland. Zubac was a minus-21 in 27:51 despite a double-double of 12 points and 13 rebounds. Brown was a minus-2 in 3:23, and Lue chose to go with Diabaté with 19 seconds left in the third quarter.
Diabaté never left the game. His energy overwhelmed the Trail Blazers on both ends of the floor. Both of Diabaté’s offensive rebounds led to points: one on his own field goal, another allowing him to split a pair of free throws after Powell missed a free throw. Diabaté also had two defensive rebounds and a steal.
But Diabaté’s biggest play mirrored his fellow Frenchman Batum: a block of Simons while protecting a 115-112 lead with 1:07 left.
The Jackson/Powell/Batum/Covington/Diabaté lineup played just under seven minutes together, outscoring the Trail Blazers 19-10. Needless to say, it was the first time that group was on the floor at the same time. It gave Lue another example of how deep his team is.
“Man, everybody,” Lue told The Athletic about his favorite part of the comeback. “Preston. Moussa. Norm second half. RoCo. Nico big shot and ball pressure. Reggie taking charge on Grant for sixth foul.”
Total team effort! pic.twitter.com/yxbJKtMSaj
— LA Clippers (@LAClippers) November 30, 2022
(Photo of Clippers forward Norman Powell: Troy Wayrynen-USA Today)