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This Day In Sports…April 15, 2019, five years ago today:

The Los Angeles Clippers stage the biggest comeback in the history of the NBA Playoffs, rallying from a 31-point third quarter deficit to stun the Golden State Warriors 135-131 in Game 2 of their first-round series. It was particularly surprising, since the Clippers were a No. 8 seed against the top-seeded Warriors, who had won three of the previous four NBA championships. The previous record was a rally from 29 points down by the L.A. Lakers against the Seattle SuperSonics 30 years earlier.  

Kevin Durant converted a three-point play with 7½ minutes remaining in the third quarter to give the Warriors their 31-point lead, 94-63. That would seem secure for a confident crew of defending champs. But that’s when Clippers’ reserve guard Lou Williams’ work started paying off—Williams scored 17 of his 36 points in the third period. L.A. kept whittling away, and just after Durant fouled out, it finally tied the game 128-128 with 1:10 left in the fourth. Stephen Curry then drilled a three-pointer with 58 seconds remaining to put Golden State back on top, and it stayed that way until Landry Shamet hit a go-ahead three with 16.5 seconds left. This time, Curry couldn’t answer on the other end.  

The Clippers shot almost 67 percent from the floor in the second half. And they did it in Oakland’s Oracle Arena, splitting the first two games of the series there and stealing homecourt advantage. But the Warriors bounced back to rout the Clippers in Game 3 in Staples Center and won Game 4 in L.A., too. They’d end up closing out the series in six games.

Golden State would make it all the way to the NBA Finals but fell to the Toronto Raptors in six games. The series definitely changed the Dubs’ dynamic. In Game 5, Durant suffered a torn Achilles. It would be the last game the superstar would play for Golden State, as he’d sign with Brooklyn, although he had to sit out the entire first season with the Nets. In the decisive Game 6, the Warriors lost Klay Thompson to a second-quarter torn ACL, an injury he had a tough time recovering from. (And when he did, he promptly tore an Achilles in November of 2020.) The Warriors retooled themselves—with Thompson—and won another title in 2022.

(Tom Scott hosts the Scott Slant segment during the football season on KTVB’s Sunday Sports Extra. He also anchors four sports segments each weekday on 95.3 FM KTIK and one on News/Talk KBOI. His Scott Slant column runs every Wednesday.)

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