The Clippers, who had a commanding 3–1 series lead over the Rockets after dominating Games 3 and 4 in Los Angeles, were summarily dismissed in Game 7 on Sunday night in Houston to complete the historic collapse—or Rockets comeback, depending on your perspective.
Houston never trailed in Game 7 after their monumental comeback to win Game 6 when they turned back a 19-point second-half road deficit, to force the do-or-die game.
While the Clippers are left to ponder what held them back from advancing to what would have been the franchise’s first-ever trip to the conference finals, the second-seeded Rockets are gearing up for what looked like an unlikely matchup with top-seeded Golden State.
In other words, the wild Western Conference playoffs actually went according to plan—but just barely, as it took one of the great escapes to happen. An escape that’s happened before in Houston, aka “Clutch City.”
