Clippers come back from 27-point hole

MEMPHIS, Tenn. - Chris Paul begged coach Vinny Del Negro to put him back in the game for the fourth quarter and not give up despite being down 21 points.

The result was another Clippers comeback - one of the greatest in NBA playoff history.

Paul made two free throws with 23.7 seconds left, and Los Angeles rallied from a deficit that had been as much as 27 to stun Memphis 99-98 on Sunday in the opening game of their Western Conference series.

"Unfortunately, that's how we play," Paul said. "We get killed in the first three quarters and in the fourth quarter we like to try to stand up for ourselves, and we found a way to win tonight."

The Clippers tied the playoff record for largest deficit overcome at the end of three quarters, when they trailed by 21.

"I don't think I've been part of a game like that ever," Clippers forward Blake Griffin said. "It was unbelievable."

Rudy Gay missed a 15-footer with 0.9 seconds left after the Grizzlies squandered a lead they held for the first 47 minutes.

"Obviously, we gave it away, and everybody's kind of down," Gay said. "We're still into it. It's a long series, and we're ready to fight. That's all this means. We've got to fight hard."

The Clippers lost Caron Butler to a broken left hand in the second half. Nick Young scored 19 points off the bench with three 3-pointers in the midst of the Clippers' 26-1 run.

Paul finished with 14 points while playing a team-high 38 minutes despite a groin injury that kept him out of the regular-season finale against the Knicks. Griffin had 17 and Butler 12 before leaving the game.

"It's crazy. It's a blessing," Young said. "It shows how hard we fought. How we rallied together as a team, and just made stops down the end."

Gay finished with 19 points for Memphis. Mike Conley and O.J. Mayo had 17, and Marc Gasol scored 14.

Game 2 is Wednesday night.

The Clippers outscored the Grizzlies 35-13 in the fourth quarter, the most points in the final period by a Memphis opponent all season. Los Angeles shot 13 of 17 from the floor, including 5 of 6 on 3-pointers after hitting only one the first three quarters.

The Grizzlies sprinted to a 20-point lead in the first quarter and were up by 27 twice in the third, the last on a pair of free throws by Mayo with 1:34 left.

The Clippers finally got going in the fourth, as the Grizzlies looked like they shut it down way too soon. They had five turnovers in the fourth.

"We just got careless," Memphis coach Lionel Hollins said. "We just lost a little bit of our discipline from a defensive perspective. But offensively, we just started walking it up and trying to throw it into the post instead of running it in. We ran earlier. We attacked. We were in transition earlier. We just stopped doing that and got conservative and it cost us."