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Clippers' Paul on Game 5 loss: 'Toughest thing I’ve been through basketball-wise'

Ronald Martinez / Getty

The final 49 seconds of the Los Angeles Clippers 105-104 Game 5 loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder must have felt like an eternity to point guard Chris Paul. 

The sequence saw the seven-time All-Star commit critical and uncharacteristic errors, turning the ball over twice, in-between fouling Thunder guard Russell Westbrook on a three-point attempt, causing the evaporation of a seven-point lead that now puts his team on the brink of elimination. 

“Toughest thing I’ve been through basketball-wise,” Paul said following the game. “Everything that happened during the end, a turnover with 17 seconds left, assuming that they would foul — dumbest play probably that I’ve ever made. And then hitting Russell’s hand and calling a foul on a 3. Just bad basketball.”

Despite Westbrook making all three of his free throws - a call that Paul later said he didn't agree - putting the Thunder up one with 6.4 seconds left, the Clippers point guard held redemption in his hand before he lost the ball in the lane and time expired. 

“We lost and it’s on me,” Paul said. “We had a chance to win and the last play, we didn’t get a shot off and that’s just dumb. I’m supposed to be the leader of the team.

“It’s just bad, real bad.”

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