The LA Clippers lost their chance to make a difference. Dallas Mavericks won 123-93 en route to a 3-2 lead in the first-round playoff series. Both Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving fought through tough fouls and contact to give the team a fighting chance. But it came at the cost of LA suffering a 30-point humiliation.

Talking to Athletic’s Law Murray post-game, the Clippers’ center Ivica Zubac has an explanation for such an abysmal outing. “We weren’t ready for this game. That’s not an excuse.” It’s a little late in the season to say they weren’t ready, wouldn’t you say?

But he did iterate that it wasn’t an excuse. It certainly looked like they could have done with a little help from their injured leading scorer. Although the team has learned and is comfortable playing with Kawhi Leonard, on a night when Dallas limited their three-point efforts drastically, ‘The Klaw’ might have been helpful. Of course, given how his injured self has played in Games 2 and 3, both of which were losses, the chances of a different outcome are low.

Ivica Zubac, for his part, was one of the top scorers in the Clippers. He finished the night with 15 points, six rebounds, and two assists in 25 minutes. He was 7-of-8 from the field and hit his only free throw of the night. The other top scorer was Paul George. He had a double-double with 15 points and 11 rebounds as he dished out four assists. But he had only 4-of-13 field goals and shot 2-of-6 from beyond the arc. PG had better luck on the charity stripe, as he went 5-of-6.

The Dallas clamped on them defensively. And there wasn’t really anything they did or could do to counteract the attack. “Defensively, offensively, we just didn’t play a good game,” Coach Lue admitted. George, though, had something of a challenge for the Mavs.

Paul George taunts the Dallas Mavericks with a win from the past

“We’ve been here before, going to Dallas being down 3-2, so we’ve just got to have a win-only mentality in Dallas,”  George said post-game. He was referring to their skirmish three seasons ago. The two were in the exact same situation back then, too. Dallas had won Game 5 on the Clippers’ turf.

But LA won the next two games and kicked the Mavs out. If the 9x All-Stars are hoping to turn around their fortunes at the American Airlines Center, they will clearly have to do better. And whoever put up the billboard outside the Crypto.com Arena might regret it.

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If Luka Doncic and Co. pull off Game 6, the Clippers could very well be setting course for Cancun. And the Mavs fans will no doubt bring this up then.