So close.  The clippers found themselves up by one with 9.2  seconds left in the fourth quarter.  It seemed the clippers might win the game.  But like many games this season it was not to be, Allen Iverson broke the clippers hearts when he penetrated into the paint and put up shot that seemed to be blocked by Thornton but was called goal tending.  I myself couldn't tell if the ball was on a downward course or if Thornton touched the rim. 

The clippers got the ball back with 2.9 seconds left. Gordon did his best to get a shot off and may have gotten a foul if this wasn't his rookie season.  But the game ended and the clippers found themselves with a one point loss. 

But as losses go this one doesn't hurt that bad.  The clippers were missing 7 players after Jones limped off court with 9:23 left in the 1st.  The clippers had no natural point guards (all though according Mike and Ralph Collins fancies himself a point guard).  So you would think that the clippers could have easily gotten blown out by the Pistons, even though they were missing Rip Hamilton and Rasheed Wallace.    But everyone on the clippers, with the exception Al, played very well.

As always Camby was great grabbing 20 rebounds and scoring 14 rebounds.  And Gordon but together another amazing game scoring 31 points, and making many shots and drawing fouls that could have won them the game.  But many players played surprsingly well.  First that comes to mind is Novak.  He had 15 points off the bench, including three 3 balls.  And even DJ played well scoring 9 points including a very nice alley from Collins.  Speaking of Collins, he actually did pretty well playing as PG he had 12 asssits(11 of those were the first half).  According to Mike and Ralph he played PG in college and thinks that it is his best posistion.  Which is good because Gordon doesn't seem like he can be as productive playing PG.  Gordon did play PG a little bit and it wasn't pretty.  The offense was not working well. 

This game was definitley a tale of two halves for both teams.  The clippers shot 55% of there shots in the first half but only made 10 shots in the second half. Luckily for the clips Detroit didn't shoot much better and the clips made it up at the line making 80% of there shots. 

Here is a summary of the good and bad

Good

• Eric Gordon, he continues to play very well scoring 31 points making all 12 of his free throws, and almost winning the game for the clippers
• Marcus Camby, he plays amazing every game chasing down loose balls and gobbling up rebounds
• DJ, he played with a lot of energy and showed how good he could be some day
• The surprising PG play of Mardy Collins
• Novak's scoring off the bench,  it has been a long time since the clips have gotten much of anything off the bench and if Novak can keep this shooting up we might actually have an ok second unit

Bad

• Jone's injury, this leaves the clippers with no natural point guards
• Thornton's continued struggles,  he finishes with 14. It continues to be a good play bad play scenario for Thornton.  One example Thornton makes an amazing play where he does a cross over and loses everyone and drives to the whole, the very next play he tries the same thing but goes the wrong way right into prince and loses the ball.  Although Thronton's struggles could be linked to Prince's always good defense (on another not Stuckey played very well which will make Jax very happy)
• poor parts of games,  usually the clips have bad 1st quaters and play decently the rest of the game.  This time the opposite was true they played great 1st and 2nd quarters and horrible 2nd halves.  This could have easily been a 20 point loss if Detroit wasn't shooting bad also

I know there are no such things as moral victories, but this one makes me feel a little better.  Maybe once we get the other half of our team back we can actually win some games.