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2021 NBA playoffs - After 50 years, of course it would be Terance Mann to help the Clippers finally break through - ESPN
Jun 19, 2021 1 min, 57 secs
Terance Mann scores 39 and the LA Clippers complete an incredible comeback in the second half to send LA to its first Western Conference Finals in franchise history.

LOS ANGELES -- Looking back on it now, there was no way to see what Terance Mann did in the Los Angeles Clippers' 131-119 series-clinching win over the Utah Jazz on Friday night coming.

Anyone who says they foresaw the second-year player scoring 39 points to send the Clippers to the first Western Conference finals in franchise history is still delirious from watching what unfolded in front of the first full-capacity indoors crowd in Los Angeles since the COVID-19 pandemic began.

So many of the Clippers fans who packed Staples Center on Friday night have lived through nights over the years that started with so much promise but turned sour.

So much baggage -- and the Clippers and their fans unloaded a ton of it Friday night.

Terance Mann -- had just delivered the first Western Conference championship in franchise history?

"I trust my work," Mann said afterward.

Afterward, in the only bit of foreshadowing anyone can honestly point to, Mann shrugged and said he was tired of settling for 3-pointers against one of the best shot-blockers in the NBA.

"I just wanted to see what I could do," Mann said after Game 5.

"You saw a full complete game from a second-year player," George said.

"You just saw so many flashes of so many different things -- and he did it in the most crucial part of the game.

"T-Mann was like my sparring partner," George said.

"I was here when we were the eighth seed, celebrating just to get in the playoffs," Beverley said.

"To finish a game like this, to make history, it's special, man.

"You felt it," George said.

Even coach Tyronn Lue, who -- as a player -- won one of the 17 championships owned by the crosstown Los Angeles Lakers, understood the history the Clippers are trying to undo here in Los Angeles.

"Just seeing our fans and how they stayed to the end and how they were cheering, it just felt good," Lue said.

But the Jazz ran out of steam in the second half, as Clarkson went scoreless and Mitchell wore down, just as the Clippers and their fans were roaring back

This Terance Mann inspired a storybook comeback, too

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