This could have easily been a story about one of the most demoralizing playoff losses in Clippers history. Instead, after nearly squandering a six-point lead in the last 23 seconds, and watching Rudy Gay’s last-second shot just miss the mark, the Clippers take an improbable 2-1 lead into Game 4, in a series they could easily be trailing 3-0.

It could have been a story about how an inexperienced playoff team’s dreadful free-throw shooting snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. Instead, it’s a story about a resilient team that answered the Grizzlies’ physical challenge in Game 2 and beat them at their own game, seizing control in the final four minutes and hanging on for dear life at the end.

 “That’s how we planned it, a relieved Chris Paul deadpanned after the game, as if the Clippers really planned on missing five of their last six free throws and nearly giving every one of their 19,000-plus fans a heart attack in the process.

This was the first home Clipper playoff game since the magical year of 2006, when Sam Cassell and Elton Brand came within a game of leading the Clippers into the Western Conference Finals. That group was never a contender again, but this team – assuming the Clippers can convince Chris Paul and Blake Griffin to stay – has a much brighter future.

The big question pre-game was the status of Caron Butler, who sustained a broken left hand in Game 2. Vinny Del Negro played his cards close to the vest, claiming he wasn’t sure whether Butler would play. No one believed him, of course, and Del Negro politely declined a reporter’s invite to swear on a stack of Bibles.

In fact, Butler was in the starting lineup, and while he wasn’t a factor, his teammates took notice. “If he can fight with one broken hand, what can the rest of us do?" said Paul.

The second big question was whether the Clippers would step up physically. Reggie Evans bluntly said after Game 2 that the Clippers had been “punked around” in Game 2. He didn’t want to revisit those comments before Game 3, saying only that his team would be ready to answer the bell for Game 3.

Getting dressed in the Grizzlies' locker room, Zach Randolph dismissed any ideas that his teammates were trying to send a message in Game 2. 

“Playing physical, it’s just the way we play,” he said. “If you ain’t a physical team, you’re not going to start being one today.” He singled out Reggie Evans as the one physical Clipper who could “install it in some other guys.” 

Nearby, Marc Gasol added that “It’s going to be a battle of wills.”

Once the game started, the Clippers more than answered the bell. Energized by 19,000 screaming fans in red Clipper Nation shirts, they threw their weight and bodies around, pummeled the Grizzlies inside, and refused to back down from the shoves, elbows and knockdowns that is the Grizzlies blue-collar style of play.

“They took away our physical game,” said Rudy Gay afterwards.  “They imposed their will on us."

Once again Evans, one of the unlikely bench heroes of the Game 1 comeback, was a vital contributor. He got a rousing hand from the crowd when he checked in late in the first quarter, and immediately made his presence felt by stealing a pass, then getting a rebound. For the game, Evans nabbed 11 rebounds, including two offensive rebounds off missed free throws, in in a hard fought 24 minutes.

The Clippers’ other physical player, Blake Griffin, still leads the league in non-calls. At one point, Griffin went up for a jam, and even with Randolph’s arms draped around his mid-section, could not get a foul call. Griffin got frustrated, and though he got an early technical, he also made the signature play of the game at the end of the first half, stealing an inbounds pass and racing 15 feet for a monster dunk that just beat the halftime buzzer.

After a 25-14 third quarter, the Grizzlies seemed poised to regain control of the series, but this is also a team that blew a 24-point lead in the last nine minutes of Game 1. With the Clippers defense tightening, the Grizzlies went 7:10 of the fourth quarter without a field goal, and then – as he has done all season – it was Chris Paul time. His 16-footer gave the Clippers an 82-80 lead, then he helped cause a turnover. The capper came on the ensuing play, when Paul beat OJ Mayo cutting left across the lane, then threaded a gorgeous bounce pass between two big men to w wide-open Griffin, waiting for the dunk.

"Paul has done it all year and his whole career," Vinny Del Negro said. "When the game is on the line, he is as good as there is in the game."

"I just walked around until he passed it," Griffin said of the play later, as the pressroom erupted in laughter.  

Said Paul: "I got into the lane, saw the two guys looking at me and I saw Blake -- he made the 'Blake Face,'" Paul said.  Paul then turned to his young son, and asked him to demonstrate the face, which the boy did with stunning likeness, bringing down the house.

Yes, it was that kind of day for the Clippers, but it came so very close to being disastrous. Leading 86-80, the Clippers watch Gay hit a three-point bomb.  Eric Bledsoe then made one free throw to push the lead to 4, but missed the second. Evans was there for the crucial rebound, was fouled – and missed both shots. Gay hit another three, and suddenly it was 87-86, and when the Clippers suddenly forgot how to inbound the ball, they were forced to use their last timeout. 

When they got it in, Bledsoe was fouled, and incredibly, missed both shots. (For the game, the Clippers were an epic fail 13-30 from the line). With no timeouts, the Grizzlies came flying downcourt with six seconds left. Gay had a good look at a 25-footer, but Randy Foye got in his face, enough to make Gay double-clutch and throw his shot off, and the Clippers survived.

After the game, even Paul was stunned by the stat sheet.

"We missed 17 free throws?" he said. "We did? It shows how much fight we have. It's unacceptable."

On paper, it seems impossible that the Clippers pulled this off. Their 43.3 free-throw percentage was the worst for any team in a single game in NBA playoff history. And the Grizzlies set a dubious record as well, according to the Elias Sports Bureau: despite making 17 more free throws than the Clippers, they still lost. Since the inception of the shot-clock in the 1954-55 season, no team had outshot its opponent from the free throw line by such an extreme margin in the postseason yet still failed to win the game.

In the end, the Clippers got the defensive stops when they needed it most, and the growing chemistry between Paul and Griffin should make them more dangerous as the playoffs go deeper. But it’d be a shame to see the Clippers waste a promising season over something as fundamental as making a free throw.

“We have to find a way,” said Del Negro, “to make them at the end of games.”