Thunder rally past Clippers to advance

Russell Westbrook of the Oklahoma City Thunder goes up for a shot against DeAndre Jordan of the Los Angeles Clippers in Game Six of the Western Conference semi-finals during the 2014 NBA Playoffs at Staples Center on Thursday in Los Angeles, California.

AFP/Los Angeles

The Thunder rallied from a 16-point first half deficit to tie the contest on the last play of the third quarter then stepped it up in the fourth to win the second-round series four games to two.

“Tonight’s game is something we’ve done all year,” said Thunder coach Scott Brooks of Thursday’s game in front of a crowd of 19,565 at Staples Center arena. “We stuck together and found ways to win.”

Oklahoma City moves on to face the top seeded San Antonio Spurs in game one of their best-of-seven series on Monday in Texas. The Spurs eliminated the Portland Trail Blazers on Wednesday.

It was a heartbreaking season-ending loss for a Clipper club that has been riding a roller-coaster of emotions while dealing with the Donald Sterling fiasco for the past month.

League MVP Durant had 16 rebounds and Russell Westbrook struggled early but still managed 19 points and 12 assists for the Thunder who advanced to their third league semi-finals in four years.

The Thunder won despite a slow start from Westbrook who didn’t hit his first field goal until the third quarter. Durant carried the team on his shoulders like he has done all season long, especially when things looked bad in the first quarter.

“It is not how you start. It is how you finish. I just stuck with it,” Durant said.

Guard Reggie Jackson scored 14 points while New Zealand’s Steven Adams came off the bench to score 10 points and grab 11 rebounds for the Thunder, who also had to overcome a large deficit to win game five.

Backup centre Adams, of Rotorua, had to come into the game early after starter Kendrick Perkins got into foul trouble.

Chris Paul finished with 25 points and 11 assists while Blake Griffin scored 22 points for the Clippers who started strong but then saw their offence begin to fizzle at the end of the second quarter.

“It was the third quarter that changed the game,” said Clippers coach Doc Rivers. “We never got our energy back. We came out at the beginning with a lot of emotion and I said to one of my coaches ‘I hope we don’t hit a wall.’”

Rivers said the problems with their embattled owner Sterling wasn’t the reason they lost the series after coming off their most successful regular season in franchise history.

“We have gone through a lot of stuff in the last three or four weeks. We shouldn’t use that as an excuse,” Rivers said.

The Sterling controversy began last month when the American gossip show TMZ released an audio of the owner telling his girlfriend that she should not bring black people to Clipper games.

In the weeks that followed, the NBA banned Sterling from the league and fined him $2.5mn. Last week the league appointed an interim chief executive to run the Clippers.

On Thursday, Sports Illustrated reported that Sterling’s lawyers had sent a letter to the league threatening to sue and telling them he didn’t plan to pay the $2.5mn fine.

Pacers beat Wizards, book playoff date with Miami

Top seed Indiana advanced to a playoff showdown against defending champion Miami for a berth in the NBA Finals with a series-clinching 93-80 victory Thursday over Washington.

Indiana’s David West scored a game-high 29 points and sparked a decisive fourth-quarter Pacers run after the Wizards had erased a 16-point deficit in the fourth quarter.

“It was all David West,” Pacers coach Frank Vogel said. “He settled us down, made a couple of big baskets. He has a way of settling our guys down and riding the waves of emotion in a game that has so many ups and downs.

“He has just got incredible will. When the game was getting tough, he was going to step up and do whatever it took to get the job done.”

The Pacers defeated Washington four games to two in their second-round best-of-seven matchup and advanced to the Eastern Conference finals for the second year in a row. They will face a rematch with the Heat to decide a berth in next month’s NBA Finals.

“We are going to trust who we are,” West said. “We have never lost our confidence in our ability to beat tough basketball teams.”

The Heat beat the Pacers in seven games in last year’s Eastern Conference final on the way to a second consecutive NBA crown.

“We’re ready to go,” Vogel said. “I like the way we played in this series. We have nothing but the utmost respect for the champs. We’re happy to have another crack at them.”

After being out-rebounded by the worst margin of any NBA playoff game since 1960 in game five and suffering the most lopsided defeat by any home team in a clinching position since 1948, the Pacers took out their frustrations on the Wizards in game six.

“No question about it. We played very poorly in game five. Nobody was happy about it. They played angry,” Vogel said.