Clippers grind out win over Suns to clinch fifth seed in playoffs

PHOENIX —  A regular season in which the Clippers made nothing look easy ended Sunday in the only way appropriate — by securing the most straightforward postseason scenario through 48 minutes of basketball that were anything but.

Phoenix, locked into the Western Conference’s fourth seed, rested all of its best players. The Clippers, capable of finishing anywhere from fifth to falling into the play-in tournament they so earnestly wanted to avoid, played postseason-ready lineups. And yet not until the last 19 seconds were the Clippers secure in knowing their playoff fate.

Their eventual 119-114 win clinched a fifth-place finish in the West — and a return engagement with the full-strength Suns, with Game 1 starting Sunday at Footprint Center.

Getting there was “stressful,” starting center Ivica Zubac acknowledged.

“We didn’t play our best game, we know that,” coach Tyronn Lue said, “but whatever is behind us, we got to focus on the bigger picture.”

Getting there required shooting 55% and outrebounding Phoenix by 10 in the fourth quarter.

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Getting there required overcoming a second consecutive uninspired start in as many days against an opponent resting its best, with no incentive to win, while the Clippers had every reason. A win Sunday would clinch a first-round series, but a loss would have allowed other results, namely Minnesota’s eventual win over New Orleans, to dictate whether the Clippers fell to the play-in tournament.

“We got to get better because the last two games, teams been sitting their stars and we’ve been struggling,” said Kawhi Leonard, who finished with 25 points, with a season-high 15 rebounds and six assists, and scored the layup with 19 seconds remaining that iced the result.

“So we still have to get better. Even though you know, it’s the NBA, everybody’s very talented when they’re given the opportunity. But we have to be better than that.”

Getting there required the Clippers to regroup after reserves Bones Hyland and Mason Plumlee shoved each other during a huddle between the third and fourth quarters, while trailing by four, after Plumlee said frustrations flared from several missed matchups defensively. Plumlee said the two worked it out quickly.

“There will be disagreements,” point guard Russell Westbrook said. “Brothers always fight and talk about it and move on.”

Said Zubac: “They were in disagreement on some coverage, they got it settled, they shook their hands like 10 seconds after that. Happens all the time but cameras don’t catch it, but when you got 15 different individuals stuff is going to happen. We’re going to stay together no matter what.”

Norman Powell scored 29 points off the bench. Westbrook had 25 points, nine assists and seven rebounds to leave the Clippers 44-38 on the season.

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Lue was receiving intermittent updates on the Minnesota and New Orleans score, because a Timberwolves victory would have locked the Clippers into a first-round series as either the fifth or sixth seed. But he had more pressing problems to follow. One day after saying the team had to display a more “professional approach” when it gave up 70 first-half points to a skeleton-crew Portland lineup, the Clippers again produced an uninspired first 24 minutes to trail by five at halftime against the star-less Suns as Kevin Durant, Chris Paul and Devin Booker watched in street clothes.

This wasn’t the Clippers playing with gamesmanship to maneuver their way into a preferred seed; this was just fatigued, ineffective basketball.

It was why Lue said afterward his top priority entering playoff preparation is that the team understands its defensive plan.

“We got to be ready to play or we’ll be going home,” he said. “We understand that. We understand what’s at stake and we know we’re facing a good team.”

A defense that ranks 20th since the All-Star break by allowing 116.4 points per 100 possessions was again erratic. Even free throws were costly. The Clippers made 16 of their 24.

Leonard’s two-for-seven shooting in the first half, which included missing all three shots from three-point range, was no aberration. In his two previous games facing Phoenix this season he shot just 29% overall and missed all of his three-pointers. When Leonard made his first three shots of the second half, the Clippers scored 11 unanswered points to lead by six and look alive for the first time.

They could never pull away, which led to the frazzled finish that needed Leonard to play 36 minutes on the second day of back-to-back games. When a turnover by Westbrook in his own backcourt allowed Phoenix to trim the Clippers’ fourth-quarter lead to just two with five minutes to play, Westbrook responded by grabbing offensive rebounds and scoring on consecutive possessions to maintain a fragile, six-point lead.

Games started concurrently across the Western Conference, and the tight game in Phoenix ended only minutes ahead of a tight game in Minneapolis, despite a five-minute delay in the first half after a speaker was lowered from the arena rafters in Phoenix for a quick repair, a slowdown that looked as though it would have allowed the Clippers-Suns game to finish last. Lue said it “was too close to even try to think about what was going on with that.”

“We wasn’t watching the results from the other games, we didn’t care, we wanted to get a win,” said Zubac, who had 10 points and eight rebounds. “We knew it would depend on ourselves.”

When it was finally over, Leonard was finishing an interview with the team’s broadcast affiliate when Paul, the former Clipper, interrupted, two years after Paul helped knock his former team out of the Western Conference finals.

“See you in a couple days,” Paul said.