Kilpatrick, Nets rally for double-OT victory over Clippers
NEW YORK (AP) -- CP3 mimicked giving CPR on a night that looked like lots of laughs for Los Angeles.
Funny turned to fiery by the end, as an enraged Doc Rivers was thrown out as his team blew one in Brooklyn.
Sean Kilpatrick scored 31 of his career-high 38 points after the third quarter and the Nets stopped a seven-game losing streak with a 127-122 double-overtime victory over the Clippers on Tuesday night.
The Clippers started the game without Blake Griffin, ended it without Rivers and dropped their third straight game by coughing up an 18-point lead while not showing enough respect for the game in their coach's mind.
"We were walking around like we done something and that bothers me because we've done (nothing). We haven't done (anything)," Rivers said. "For us to walk around against a team, that to me is playing their hearts out every night just to win one game, us to walk around like we done something, it bothers me on a basketball level."
Chris Paul had 26 points, 13 assists and 10 rebounds for the Clippers, but the best guard on the floor in crunch time was Kilpatrick, who also had a career-best 14 rebounds.
Brook Lopez added 27 points for the Nets, who trailed 86-68 with 2 minutes left in the third quarter.
"We were down 20, then next minute you know we just kept chipping it down," Kilpatrick said. "Then next minute I knew we were down four, and I was like yo, it's on now. It's game time."
DeAndre Jordan had 21 points and 23 rebounds for the Clippers, who rested Griffin, their leading scorer, ahead of a game in Cleveland on Thursday.
"Anybody in the league knows, they say, you mess with the game and like you said, the basketball gods got us," Paul said.
The Clippers started 39-year-old Paul Pierce, who had played in just two games, in place of Griffin. Pierce had played just 17 minutes all season but logged 29 minutes in this one, such an increase in workload that Paul pushed down on his chest a few times on the court at one point, pretending to give CPR after Pierce fell on his back while being fouled on a dunk attempt.
The Clippers were serious by the end.
Rivers was tossed late in the first OT, becoming enraged and having to be held back by Clippers players and assistants as he tried to get at referee Ken Mauer. Rivers appeared upset about a call on the other end of the floor, walking out of the coaching box and almost all the way to the Nets bench.
Mauer said crossing over midcourt was an automatic technical and the second was for language and behavior.
Rivers missed Kilpatrick's masterful finish, which he capped with a three-point play with 13.5 seconds left.
The Nets, still playing without point guard Jeremy Lin, ended a skid that started with a 127-95 loss at the Clippers on Nov. 14.
Los Angeles had lost in Detroit and Indiana in its last two games, managing just 70 points Sunday against the Pacers in its lowest-scoring game in 13 years. Rivers pointed to some defensive lapses as the bigger concern, and they certainly struggled to stay in front of Kilpatrick, who was just 3 for 14 after three quarters.
TIP-INS
Clippers: J.J. Redick made a 3-poiner in his 75th straight game, tying one of Stephen Curry's streaks for sixth-longest in NBA history. Curry's NBA-record 157-game streak was snapped earlier this season.
Nets: Coach Kenny Atkinson still couldn't give a timetable on Lin, saying the point guard who missed his 12th straight game with a strained left hamstring was working hard and "progressing as planned."
DOC IS JUST A NICKNAME
The Clippers have increased their spending on biometrics this season, and Rivers -- first name Glenn -- was asked if he relied on that to determine Griffin would sit.
"I clearly didn't, I'm not smart enough to use biometrics," Rivers said. "But the people we hired did, and they told me biometrically that this would be a good day for him to rest."
UP NEXT
Clippers: Visit Cleveland on Thursday night. The Clippers have lost the last four meetings.
Nets: Host Milwaukee on Thursday night, opening a home-and-home series against former Nets star and coach Jason Kidd's Bucks, who have won the last five meetings.
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