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The Clippers, shorthanded as they were, put up one heck of a show Thursday night in Oklahoma. When Doc Rivers announced the resting of his trusted starters, surely ESPN prayed for some redeeming ray of hope to restore interest in the prime-time game. Well, their prayers were answered by Austin Rivers and Jamal Crawford, who put up 64 points as a pair.
These performances were enough to get the Clippers to 100 points first, but they were, unfortunately, not enough to secure the win. Thus, Lawler's Law -- "first to 100 points, wins" -- was broken. Even worse, the Clippers were the only team of the night that could not uphold the Law:
Lawler's Law (first team to 100 wins) was true in 5 of 6 games tonight, with the Clippers being the only exception. pic.twitter.com/uTsCQDvJMn
— NBA on ESPN (@ESPNNBA) April 1, 2016
Lawler's Law, of course coined by the Clippers' long time broadcaster, is generally correct. In fact, there is even a website dedicated to tracking its accuracy. Latest calculations have the Law at 93.88% accuracy since the 1996-1997 season. But the Law gets significantly less accurate in "close games' -- Thursday's game being of this kind -- with only 79.17%.
In other Ralph Lawler related news, Clippers.com writer Rowan Kavner recently published a long piece on Lawler entitled, "A Voice Undefeated."