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LOS ANGELES -- The offseasons of the Los Angeles Clippers and the San Antonio Spurs began three weeks apart but with similar goals in mind.

After losing four straight games to the same team to finish their seasons, the Clippers and Spurs knew they needed to make major changes if they hoped to get to the NBA Finals.

While the Spurs focused almost solely on the defensive end, the Clippers focused on reshaping their roster around Chris Paul and Blake Griffin. They needed to get deeper, smarter and more able to bang against Memphis down low one series, and guard the perimeter against San Antonio the next.

Both plans appeared to be working heading into last week’s NBA All-Star break, with the Spurs and Clippers occupying two of the top three seeds in the West and two of the top four seeds in the NBA.

But as Spurs coach Gregg Popovoich said before the Clippers played his team Thursday night, “It doesn’t matter what the standings are. The standings are sort of fake during the year.”

After the Spurs’ 116-90 dismantling of the Clippers, maybe Los Angeles’ championship prosepcts aren’t entirely fake, but its authenticity has certainly come under heavy scrutiny.

Sure, the Clippers will win 50 games this season and win the Pacific Division, two significant firsts for a franchise that has never done either. They may even accomplish another first by advancing to the Western Conference finals if things fall right for them in the postseason. But the realistic chances of this team winning a title or even getting to the NBA Finals have taken a major blow over the past two weeks.

Not only did the Clippers lose by 26 points to the Spurs on Thursday, but two weeks ago they lost by 22 points to the Miami Heat. In both games they fell behind by at least 32 points in the second half and never led by more than three points in the first half. In fact, they never even led Thursday, as the Spurs took a 34-21 lead after the first quarter. The Clippers are also 0-2 against the Oklahoma City Thunder this season.

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LOS ANGELES -- The Los Angeles Clippers spent the majority of their offseason putting together a team that would be better suited to beating the San Antonio Spurs if they ever met in the playoffs again.

After Los Angeles was swept by the Spurs in the playoffs last season, San Antonio was in the back of the Clippers' minds as they made move after move this summer. On Thursday, none of it seemed to matter as the Clippers were thoroughly outclassed and outmatched in a 116-90 drubbing that was easily L.A.’s most embarrassing loss of the season.

Here are three takeaways from the game:

Backcourt disappearance

If the Clippers are going to have any success against the Spurs or have a chance of going far in the playoffs, they’re going to need their backcourt of Chris Paul and Chauncey Billups to shine. On Thursday, they were a no-show. Paul finished with four points on 1-of-4 shooting to go along with five turnovers, three assists and two rebounds. Billups wasn’t much better, as he finished with six points on 0-of-2 shooting, getting all his points from the free throw line. Neither player was able to get into any kind of a rhythm, while Paul looked rusty even after his 20-point, 15-assist MVP performance in Sunday’s NBA All-Star Game. They were outplayed by Tony Parker, who had 31 points on 12-of-16 shooting with seven assists and two rebounds.

Cold night

The Clippers played poorly across the board, but their ineptitude hit its depths in the third quarter, as Los Angeles hit just five of 14 shots and didn’t hit a field goal until nearly midway through the quarter. The Clippers not only hit 35.7 percent of their shots in the quarter, but allowed the Spurs to score 34 points and hit 60 percent of their shots. Whatever halftime adjustments Clippers coach Vinny Del Negro made clearly didn’t work, or fell on deaf ears, as the Clippers quickly found themselves down by 34 points in the second half.

What now?

If this is a preview of things to come, the Clippers could be looking at another quick series against the Spurs if the two teams end up facing each other. The Clippers know Paul and Billups won’t combine for 10 points and five assists many times, and if they do, they fully expect to be on the losing end. The problem for the Clippers is this isn’t really an aberration because they were blown out by the Miami Heat recently when Paul and Billups had off nights as well. If the Clippers want to be considered one of the top teams in the NBA, they can’t get blown out and fall behind by 30 or more points in the second half to teams such as the Heat and the Spurs. The Clippers likely will recover from this loss and finish with the third seed in the West, but their confidence going into a playoff rematch against San Antonio can’t be high given how badly they looked against the Spurs on Thursday with a fully healthy roster.

LOS ANGELES -- Vinny Del Negro’s memory isn’t great. That’s probably a good thing when you’re the coach of the Los Angeles Clippers and constantly being asked about a star-crossed history you had nothing to do with.

Del Negro is always quick to remind anyone who is curious that the Clippers’ history is not his history. He wasn’t with the Clippers when Danny Manning, Ken Norman and Bo Kimble were on the team, and no one in the Clippers’ current locker room was either.

On Sunday night, however, Del Negro’s history and the Clippers' history finally crossed paths.

After the Clippers beat the Utah Jazz 107-96 for their 17th straight win, the Clippers became only the third team in NBA history to go 16-0 in a calendar month, joining the 1995-96 San Antonio Spurs and the 1971-72 Los Angeles Lakers, who went on to win a record 33 games in a row.

Del Negro was on that 1995-96 Spurs team that won 17 games in a row and went 16-0 in March. Del Negro remembers he was a starter on that team, but don’t ask him to break down the streak game by game.

“I can’t remember what I had for lunch yesterday let alone what happened in 1995,” Del Negro said. “Are you kidding me? I remember we started the season slow that year and took off after that.

“I recall I played with David Robinson, and that took care of a lot of problems. I was real fortunate to play with David for a long time, and when we went on that streak there were a lot of quality players on that team. There were a lot of NBA coaches on that team, too.”

There were actually four future NBA head coaches (Del Negro, Doc Rivers, Monty Williams and Avery Johnson), one future NBA assistant (Chuck Person) and one future NBA general manager (Del Demps) on that team.

“We had a special bunch of guys then,” Del Negro said. “And I feel we have a special bunch of guys in our locker room now.”

The Clippers have been hesitant to talk about it during the streak, but they certainly feel something special is happening in their locker room right now. After Sunday’s game, they could be heard jumping up and down just a little bit louder and a little bit longer than usual.

“Usually, when we win we jump up once or twice in the locker room,” Del Negro said. “Tonight we let them jump up and down three or four times. We let them have their fill, and now they’re in there playing their music and relaxing and enjoying it, and they deserve it.”

As Childish Gambino’s “R.I.P.” blared in the locker room, the players were more reserved than usual after the win. Gone were the players’ children who normally run around the locker room. In their place were ice buckets for the players' feet. It has been a long month, and the players were in a more reflective mood after playing their last game of 2012.

This wasn’t a streak or a record they set out to achieve before the season or before the month. It’s simply a byproduct of the way they are playing now.

“It’s unreal,” Blake Griffin said. “It’s just something that keeps happening. We don’t really talk about it. It wasn’t like we said, 'All right guys, let’s win all our games in December.' It just kind of happened. … It’s been unreal how many different ways we’ve won and which guys have shown up and how they’ve shown up. Some guys haven’t scored and some guys have just played defense and have gotten stops and turnovers. It’s a selfless attitude the team has taken on and it’s fun. This is the most fun I’ve had playing basketball.”

On a team that seemingly finds different ways to win every night, the one constant every player talks about is having fun. It might seem simplistic, but given how little fun some of them had in previous seasons, it has been a breath of fresh air to players such as Jamal Crawford and Matt Barnes, who have had breakout seasons and sparked the best bench in the NBA.

“We definitely have something special here,” said Crawford, who is not only making a case for NBA Sixth Man of the Year honors, but his first All-Star berth after averaging 16.4 points this season. “Honestly, I don’t think I’ve felt this feeling being on a team since high school when we won the championship. I had a special feeling then. It didn’t matter who we played. The confidence and the closeness, it was something special and I haven’t felt that since then.”

History says the Clippers have something special, too. They became just the 17th team in league history to win 17 games in a row; of the previous 16 teams, nine went on to play in the NBA Finals.

It’s a reality that is still hard to fathom for anyone who has been around the Clippers longer than two seasons, but it's part of a new reality Del Negro and the Clippers are trying to create.

“When people say who they’ve been, they haven’t been that way since I’ve been here,” Del Negro said of the Clippers. “They haven’t been that way since these guys have been in the locker room. I don’t put any of that stuff on them. I don’t look at the past. I look at the past to learn, but I don’t look at the way the organization was run back then.”

As great as the Clippers' winning streak is, Del Negro doesn’t want his team to suffer the same fate his Spurs did in the 1995-96 season. That team failed to win their 18th game in a row and eventually lost to the Jazz in the second round. He has bigger plans for the Clippers this year and in the future.

“As we keep winning, hopefully it will be easy to sell this because people want to be around winners,” he said. “We have a good group in there, but it’s a group that knows they have to get better to continually win and put us in a situation where we’re in this position year in and year out. I want to do this every year. I don’t want this to be once in a while. This has got to be a staple of how we go about our business.”

The Los Angeles Clippers heard the skeptics as they began the season with a 7-2 record, including wins over five of the best teams in the league. As good as the Clippers looked, they had played eight of their first nine games at Staples Center and had traveled outside of Los Angeles only once since Oct. 25.

The Clippers’ four-game road trip, which began Monday night in San Antonio, would show how real the Clippers were. After all, the Clippers had lost 18 straight games at San Antonio before winning at the AT&T Center last season. They also had been swept out of the second round of the playoffs last season by the Spurs.

This season, however, is different.

The Clippers not only beat the Spurs 92-87 on Monday, they have beaten the Spurs twice this season. The Clippers have not defeated the Spurs twice in same season since 1996-97, which was the season before Tim Duncan was drafted. That was also the last time the Clippers won back-to-back games in San Antonio.

“This is a tough place to play,” Clippers guard Chris Paul, who finished with 19 points and 8 assists, told Prime Ticket immediately after the game. “These guys were in my division when I was in New Orleans and we might have won here only once or twice before, so this was a good grind-out win for us to start this road trip.”

Here are three takeaways from the game:

Barnes’ impact:

The Clippers made headlines this offseason when they overhauled their bench by trading for Lamar Odom and Willie Green and signing Jamal Crawford, Grant Hill, Ryan Hollins and Ronny Turiaf. Before the start of training camp, the Clippers also inked Matt Barnes to a one-year deal for the veteran’s minimum after Paul pushed the front office to sign him after discovering he was a free-agent during a pick-up basketball game at the Clippers' training facility this summer. It might not have made as much news as their other pickups, but Barnes has been the Clippers’ biggest offseason addition beyond Crawford. He was a spark plug off the bench for the Clippers, scoring 14 points and grabbing nine rebounds, to go along with three steals in 23 minutes. All of his baskets and rebounds came at crucial moments of the game as he helped the Clippers take a 10-point lead in the fourth quarter and remained in the game along with the starters.

“Matt Barnes gets the game ball tonight,” Paul said. “He played just about the whole second half. He’s the most in-shape player on our team as you can see, and he won the game for us tonight."

Griffin and Paul finish strong:

Prior to Monday night, the Clippers had jumped out to leads of at least 20 points in their past five wins, thanks in large part to a deep a bench. The play of their second unit has enabled Paul and Blake Griffin to essentially be spectators in the fourth quarter this season as both players are averaging career lows in minutes played. Against the Spurs, the Clippers needed both Paul and Griffin to finish the game, and they responded as you would expect: Griffin had 16 points and 12 rebounds, and Paul scored 11 second-half points. Paul's only basket in the fourth quarter, however, was his biggest of the game, as he backed down Tony Parker in the paint and scored from 10 feet out to put the game away with 24.9 seconds left.

“This sets a great tone,” Paul said, “especially the way we won. Like I've said all season long, it’s not going to be one guy with 30 or 40 points. It’s a team effort every night for us.”

Bledsoe and the bench:

Before the game, Spurs coach Gregg Popovich said Eric Bledsoe was probably the most underrated played in the league.

“It’s like nobody knows who he is,” Popovich told reporters before the game. “But he’s a hell of a weapon.”

Popovich and the Spurs got a good look at what a weapon Bledsoe can be on Monday, as he was all over the court, scoring 9 points, grabbing 5 rebounds and getting 2 steals. The bench again was huge for the Clippers, who fell behind by 10 points in the first quarter with the starters in the game but went into the half with a five-point lead after outscoring the Spurs 29-14 in the second quarter thanks a 19-2 run.

“We got off to a bad start, but our bench is not your typical bench,” Paul said. “They got the lead for us.”

LOS ANGELES -- The sound of Gregg Popovich's voice was seared into the minds of the Los Angeles Clippers during an extended offseason that began earlier than they would have liked after they were swept by the San Antonio Spurs in the second round of the playoffs six months ago.

"If you pass down the shot, you're coming out of the game," Popovich would yell at Gary Neal after he made one too many passes to Danny Green, ignoring an open look.

Clippers players were quietly in awe of the Spurs' dedication to a system that was so strong and so consistent that it was never affected by one bad pass or one bad shot. Clippers players talked to one other about certain plays in the game that the Spurs would make as if they were trying to figure out a magic trick.

"My old coach, Monty Williams, used to say you have to analyze success," Clippers guard Chris Paul said. "They're successful for a reason."

Williams and Paul's current coach, Vinny Del Negro, should know a thing or two about Popovich's success -- both Del Negro and Williams played under Popovich with the Spurs.

They both know the key to the Spurs' success can actually be found in the words of Jacob Riis, social reformer who died nearly 100 years ago. A famous Riis quote has been plastered in the Spurs' locker room for as long as Popovich has been in San Antonio.

"When nothing seems to help," it reads, "I go look at a stonecutter hammering away at his rock perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred and first blow it will split in two, and I know it was not that blow that did it, but all that had gone before."

It's the kind of consistency and patience the Clippers are still trying to attain less than a year after reshaping the image of the franchise after trading for Paul last December.

If the Clippers' 106-84 win over the Spurs on Wednesday night is any indication, the Clippers are further ahead than they were last season and may be onto something special if they can somehow pretend every team they face is a playoff team. The Clippers are 3-2 this season with wins over the Spurs, Los Angeles Lakers and Memphis Grizzlies with inexcusable home losses to the Golden State Warriors and Cleveland Cavaliers sandwiched in between.

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LOS ANGELES -- The Los Angeles Clippers had been waiting for this game for about six months. While a regular-season game in November doesn't quite hold the same weight of a playoff game in May, after getting swept by the San Antonio Spurs in the second round of the playoffs last season, the Clippers had been looking forward to their first shot at San Antonio this season.

From the opening tip it looked as though the Clippers let out six months' worth of built-up aggression on the Spurs. The Clippers jumped out to a 20-point lead to start the fourth quarter before eventually winning, 106-84, to hand the Spurs their first loss of the season (4-1), while improving their record to 3-2.

Here are three takeaways from the game:

Griffin powers through

There was no doubt that Clippers forward Blake Griffin would play in Wednesday’s game but there was some question as to how long Griffin would play and how effective he would be. Griffin has been playing through a burst bursa sac in his right elbow and a neck strain that limited him in Tuesday's practice and Wednesday's shootaround. Griffin, however, responded when the game began, finishing with 22 points and 10 rebounds, his second double-double of the season, in only 30 minutes. Griffin was a force on both ends of the court and finished the game with a couple of big lob dunks from Matt Barnes to put the final exclamation point on the Clippers' biggest win of the season.

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PLAYA VISTA, Calif. -- After opening the season with back-to-back wins over the Memphis Grizzlies and the Los Angeles Lakers, the Los Angeles Clippers proceeded to sleepwalk through back-to-back losses to the Golden State Warriors and the Cleveland Cavaliers.

On Monday night, Clippers coach Vinny Del Negro said his team was "in no position" to take teams lightly and they "haven't done anything yet."

Of course, that's sometimes easier said than done.

"I think we play to the level of our competition sometimes," Clippers guard Eric Bledsoe said Tuesday after practice. "Like we don't get up for the games we're supposed to win, but the games we play against playoff teams we bring it. It's not supposed to be like that."

Bledsoe said he could sense a difference in his teammates in the locker room and on the court from the Clippers' first two games against rivals and playoff teams and their last two games against teams that didn't make the playoffs last season and aren't projected to make the playoffs this season.

"We have to hold each other accountable for our actions," Bledsoe said. "[Chris Paul] and Chauncey [Billups] talked to us earlier today at film about it. This is the NBA. Everybody is here for a reason. Everybody can play. You just can't come to the games and not be focused and [play] with the energy like we're not going to struggle with this team. That's what I think we did coming into those last two games. We came in complacent instead of just going out there and winning."

The Clippers should not have a complacency problem against the San Antonio Spurs on Wednesday night after the Spurs swept the Clippers out of the playoffs last season.

"I expect to see everybody focused and ready to play the game," Bledsoe said. "We'll be ready especially after what happened in the playoffs."

ESPNLA.com reporters Pedro Moura and Arash Markazi preview what to watch for in Saturday's 12:30 p.m. PT Game 3 between the Clippers and Spurs at the Staples Center.

They discuss the status of injured Clippers Chris Paul and Blake Griffin and the biggest things the Clips did wrong in losing Games 1 and 2 in San Antonio. Then they provide their predictions for the two weekend games between the two teams.

We asked our Facebook and Twitter audience what adjustments the Clippers need to make to beat the Spurs in Game 2. The responses were as creative as you would expect, so we Storified it. See who had the best advice.

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When the game was over and Chris Paul was changing in the visitors locker room of the AT&T Center in San Antonio, his 2-year-old son, Chris, came up to him and said, “You did a good job.”

Paul, putting on his suit, corrected him and said, “No, I did a bad job.”

The San Antonio Spurs had just defeated the Clippers 108-92 in Game 1 of their Western Conference semifinal series, and Paul was still upset at himself for finishing with just six points on 3-of-13 shooting along with five turnovers, five steals, three assists and 10 rebounds.

“He don’t know no better,” Paul said of his son. “I got every shot that I wanted and I think that’s the good thing about tonight. I didn’t knock them down but that happens sometimes. This is Game 1; we’re going to go back to the drawing board and see what we did well and see what we didn’t do well and get ready for Game 2.”

As upset as Paul was with his performance, there was no real reason to believe the Clippers would beat the Spurs on Tuesday night. Every statistical analysis, historical comparison and logical reasoning going into the game said the Spurs would win and it wouldn’t even be close.

Over the past 20 years, when teams playing with six or more days off play a team with one day of rest, they are 8-0 in the postseason with an average winning margin of 21.6 points. The Spurs, coming off an eight-day layoff, also had won their previous 14 games, winning by an average margin of more than 17 points. And the Spurs had lost just once to the Clippers in San Antonio over the past decade, including an 18-game winning streak prior to this season.

Although the final score might not indicate it, the Clippers came out with more fight than most would have expected of a team that had just played a Game 7 on the road 48 hours earlier. The Clippers held a lead in the second quarter, and even after the Spurs took a 19-point lead to start the fourth quarter, the Clippers stormed back and were within eight points with less than eight minutes left in the game.

“If you’ve watched them, they always come back,” Spurs coach Gregg Popovich said. “They don’t fold. That’s just a credit to their team. They just keep on playing and stick within the system, and they’ve come back many, many times, as we’ve all seen. That’s who they are.”

The Clippers have come back from double-digit deficits 15 times this season, which is the most in the league, but they wouldn’t be able to recreate their Game 1 “Miracle in Memphis” in San Antonio. Not when Popovich was calling timeouts during the Clippers’ run, and berating every player and cameraman in sight until San Antonio finished the game on an 18-10 run to comfortably pull away as Paul and Blake Griffin finished the game on the bench.

“They are pesky,” Spurs guard Manu Ginobili said of the Clippers. “They are tough. They pressure you. They force you to turn the ball over. They do that very well. They are that kind of team that pressures the ball and forces you into making bad decisions. It’s something we’re going to have to improve.”

Not only were the Clippers hurt by a rested Tim Duncan, who scored a game-high 26 points and grabbed 10 rebounds, but they were hurt by San Antonio’s outside shooting, which did not show any ill effects from an eight-day layoff. The Spurs connected on 13 3-pointers, which tied the franchise playoff record, set in 2007. Against Memphis, the Clippers gave up 24 3-pointers over the seven-game series. The Clippers also have to shore up their effort on the offensive boards, as they once again were outrebounded overall 47-34. The Clippers now have given up at least 11 offensive rebounds in seven of their past eight postseason games.

“They just beat us,” Paul said. “We didn’t play effective.”

The lone silver lining for the Clippers was the play of backup guard Eric Bledsoe, who scored a career-high 23 points, and had five rebounds, four assists and three steals. Nick Young added 13 points off the bench for Los Angeles. The Clippers’ “Goon Squad” of Kenyon Martin and Reggie Evans likely will not be as effective against the Spurs as they were against Memphis. San Antonio will spread the Clippers out, and essentially take Evans and Martin out of the game by forcing them to play in the middle and run out to 3-point shooters. Case in point, Evans played only 8 minutes Tuesday, and finished with four fouls, three rebounds and zero points.

In the end, Tuesday’s Game 1 could prove to be a microcosm of this entire series. The young, scrappy Clippers will play the Spurs tough and give them a good challenge but simply won’t have enough to finish off a team that has won 117 playoff games and four championships over the past 15 years, which is second only to the Los Angeles Lakers. Meanwhile, the Clippers just won their second playoff series since 1976, 48 hours ago.

This series might end up being more about gaining experience and building for the future as much as it is pulling another upset for the Clippers. Just don’t tell that to Paul, who still remembers being ousted by the Spurs the only other time he advanced past the second round, four years ago.

“We missed a lot of bunnies; we missed a lot of little layups and floaters in the lane,” Paul said. “We didn’t get to the free throw line enough. We came in here in the locker [room] and felt like there were some good things that we did. We just have to stay the course.”

It has been almost 15 years since Los Angeles Clippers coach Vinny Del Negro last played for the San Antonio Spurs, but he’s still far more synonymous with the Silver and Black than any of the other eight teams he has either played or coached for during his basketball career.

In fact, when the Spurs played the Clippers earlier this season, Spurs coach Gregg Popovich admitted that Del Negro’s name is still uttered in practices all the time, but maybe not for reasons Del Negro would like to hear.

“Some of the stuff we do on defense, we actually have one thing we call on the pin downs, we say we’re going to ‘Del Negro it’ and that’s in his honor and we’ve done that for 15 years,” Popovich said. “We have a Del Negro defense out there because he couldn’t play a lick of D. At times we had to invent something just to hide him, so we call it ‘Del Negro’ and you do certain things on the court and everybody has to make up for that guy who’s the ‘Del Negro.’”

Popovich doesn’t really consider Del Negro a protégé the same way he does former Spurs assistant coach and current Lakers head coach Mike Brown. “He’s not a protégé,” Popovich said. “We never coached together but I was able to coach him.”

Del Negro spent his best six years as a player in the NBA in San Antonio but left the team after the 1997-98 season and missed the Spurs’ first NBA title in 1999. He still talks to Popovich regularly and watches the Spurs' games as often as possible. After San Antonio beat the Lakers 121-97 last month, Del Negro smiled at a group of reporters after the game and said, “Did you watch the Spurs?! Whooo!”

“We’ve always kept in touch with each other,” Popovich said. “We’ll share things and try to support each other and everything because he’s a wonderful guy. He understood the game, he wasn’t very quick but he really knew how to play the game, especially pick-and-roll and that kind of thing. He knew what was going on out there on the floor. When you’re around guys like that or Avery Johnson or Steve Kerr, you know if they want to they can coach someday because they really understand what’s going on.”

Popovich couldn’t remember if he talked about coaching with Del Negro at the end of Del Negro’s career in San Antonio, but figured it probably came up in conversation at some point.

“I assume I did. It was so long ago,” Popovich said. “I do that with a lot of my players to see what they want to do when they’re done. Some guys want to do [it] and other guys are smart enough to realize they [don’t] want to do it because there’s more to life than coaching.”

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LOS ANGELES -- Even though Chauncey Billups was lost for the season 39 days ago, the thought of the Los Angeles Clippers possibly trading for a replacement in Nick Young wasn’t hatched until 10 days ago.

It was a deal the Clippers, in need of a big shooting guard, wanted to make. And it was a trade Young, a Los Angeles native who played at Cleveland High (in nearby Reseda) and USC, wanted the Clippers to make.

In the end, however, it seemed as though it wasn’t going to happen. As much as Clippers general manager Neil Olshey coveted Young and thought he could help the team, he wasn’t prepared to part with any of the assets he wanted to protect currently and in the future. Those assets included second-year guard Eric Bledsoe, future first-round picks and players currently ingrained in the rotation, such as guards Mo Williams and Randy Foye.

As of 11:15 a.m. in Los Angeles, Olshey was ready to move forward with the Clippers’ roster before he got a phone call from Washington Wizards general manager Ernie Grunfeld. The Clippers were back in the mix if they wanted Young, and the price tag was more than reasonable. They could get their talented 26-year-old starting shooting guard, and all the Clippers had to give up was a future second-round pick, which they got from the New Orleans Hornets in the Chris Paul trade, and Brian Cook, who has played all of 16 games this season, averaging 1.9 points and 1.4 rebounds.

Basically the Clippers were getting Young, who is averaging 16.6 points and 2.4 rebounds in 32 starts this season, for nothing to complete a larger three-team deal between the Wizards and Denver Nuggets that sent Nene Hilario to the Wizards and JaVale McGee and Ronny Turiaf to the Nuggets.

“I was actually surprised, I didn’t think there was any way we were going to be able to acquire a player like Nick Young for a future second-round pick,” Olshey said. “Nick has wanted to be here for a long time. He was motivated to come here. Clearly, it was part of a bigger deal and we needed to make the math work for Washington and Denver to complete their transitions.”

Olshey said he thought the deal was dead last night when he went to bed and anticipated the Clippers would not make any deals. That is, until 45 minutes before the NBA trade deadline, when Grunfeld called him. Olshey had already informed Clippers owner Donald Sterling about the prospect of the deal Wednesday night and Sterling had signed off on it.

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Clippers (22-15) vs. San Antonio Spurs (26-12) at AT&T Center, 5:30 p.m. PT

Five storylines to track:

1. Tailspin: On its own, Chris Paul’s ill-fated pass to San Antonio Spurs guard Gary Neal for a game-tying three-pointer three weeks ago (which led to the Spurs' improbable comeback win) would have been bad enough, but what has transpired since then has been even harder for Paul and the Clippers to swallow. Since Feb. 18 the Clippers have lost six of nine games including their last two on the road. Not only are they losing games but much like they did against the Spurs, they are relinquishing late leads and losing close games. In fact, their last three losses have been by a combined five points with their last two losses being decided by just a single point.

2. The list: Longtime Clippers announcer Ralph Lawler goes up to Paul before every game in which the Clippers have an especially long losing streak against the opponent or in a building where they haven't left victorious in years. It was something Paul had asked Lawler to do earlier in the season when he was continually asked about the team's long losing streak against, well, everyone. Lawler won’t have to remind Paul of the streaks today, he has already heard them this season. The last time the Clippers won in San Antonio was 2002 and they’ve only won their once since 1997. The Clippers have also only beaten the Spurs two times overall (both in Los Angeles) since 2003. The Spurs beat the Clippers, 115-90, in the second game of the regular season back on Dec. 28.

3. Spurs connection: Clippers coach Vinny Del Negro is still a beloved figure in San Antonio, having played there for six seasons of his 12-year career. In fact, Spurs coach Gregg Popovich still uses Del Negro’s name to this day when he is coaching his team. “We actually have one thing on defense we call on the pin downs where we say we’re going to ‘Del Negro’ it and that’s in his honor and we’ve done that for 15 years,” Popovich said. “We have a ‘Del Negro’ defense out there because he couldn’t play a lick of D. At times we had to invent something just to hide him so we call it ‘Del Negro’ and you do certain things on the court and everybody has to make up for that guy who’s the ‘Del Negro’.”

4. Playoff seeding: Entering their game three weeks ago, the Clippers and Spurs were essentially tied for the No. 2 seed but since then the Spurs have held on to the second spot in the West while the Clippers have dropped to the No. 4 seed, mere percentage points ahead of the Lakers at No. 5. Despite winning 20 of the past 21 meetings with the Clippers, Popovich would rather have to face the Clippers in the postseason. “They’re a real physical team. They have a real edge. I love the edge that they have,” Popovich said. “They’ll knock the hell out of you and continue to play. It’s not just dunking the basketball but it’s knocking the hell out of you on cuts, grabbing at you and making the referees make calls, rebounding and going after it. That’s the first impression I get with these guys. Now they have the head to go with all the talent with Chris, obviously. I don’t know if there’s a better leader on the court or somebody who knows what the hell is going on at this particular time or this score or with this much time on the clock or this situation. He understands all those things intuitively and that’s a hell of a talent to add.”

5. Griffin effect: Clippers forward Blake Griffin had 28 points and 17 rebounds in the Clippers’ loss to the New Jersey Nets on Wednesday but rolled his left ankle late in the game. He will, however, start Friday against San Antonio. Popovich said the Spurs have to be aware of Griffin in transition and make contact with him early. “If you let him run free you have no shot because Chris or Mo [Williams] is going to find him and they’re going to throw it up in the air he’s going to go up in the air and you can’t get there,” Popovich said. “So you have to maintain contact with him in transition at all times. In the half court, you have help people. Do you want him going to the rim or do you want him to hit a jump shot. It’s something he works on all the time and he’s going to get better and better but given a choice you’d rather have him shooting a 20-footer than taking it the hole and you don’t have to be a genius to figure that out and he knows that and that’s why he works on his shot. Once he gets that down, he’ll be impossible. He’s ridiculous now but he’ll be impossible.”

Clippers (19-9) vs. San Antonio Spurs (21-9) at Staples Center, 12:30 p.m. PT

Five storylines to track:

1. Measuring stick: For The past 15 years the Spurs and Clippers have been on opposite ends of the spectrum in the NBA, and their head-to-head record certainly reflects that. The Clippers have only one win against the Spurs in their past 20 meetings and suffered through an 18-game losing streak to San Antonio from 2006-10. The Clippers have also only won once in San Antonio since 1997. The Clippers suffered one of their worst losses of the season against San Antonio at the beginning of the season when the Spurs beat them 115-90 on Dec. 28. The Spurs are currently on a 10-game winning streak, the longest current run in the NBA, and a win Saturday would move them a step closer to the best record in the West. A Clippers win, however, would move the Clippers past the Spurs for the second-best record in the conference.

2. Comeback kids: The Clippers came back from an 18-point deficit Thursday to beat the Portland Trail Blazers 74-71. It was the Clippers’ biggest comeback win of the season and their largest comeback victory in three years. One of the biggest differences between this year’s team and those that have faded in the past has been the Clippers’ ability to close out games on the road. The Clippers’ rally in Portland is the team’s fifth road win since Jan. 29 in which they have come back from a deficit of 10 or more points. This season, the Clippers have battled back from double-figure deficits six times. Before this season, the Clippers' past four road wins in which they overcame a double-digit deficit came in four different years.

3. Spurs influence: No other franchise in the NBA has had a greater influence over the Clippers recently than the San Antonio Spurs. They are the team the Clippers have tried to model themselves after culturally and philosophically after Clippers coach Vinny Del Negro was hired two years ago. Del Negro played with the Spurs from 1992-98, helping lead the Spurs to the playoffs on five occasions. Two of Del Negro’s assistants, Marc Iavaroni and Howard Eisley also played for the Spurs. Del Negro credits Spurs coach Gregg Popovich with helping mold his coaching philosophy and says he always wants them to win, except when they play the Clippers.

4. Board game: Last month around this time, the Clippers were dead last in the league in rebounding. Since then Reggie Evans has returned from an offseason injury, Kenyon Martin was signed as a free agent and the Clippers now find themselves 15th in the league in rebounding. The Clippers have dominated the glass in their past five contests, outrebounding their opponents 242 to 179. The Clippers are 4-1 in that span and have outrebounded their opponents in eight straight games and have had more offensive rebounds in six straight games. That advantage should continue against the Spurs, who are 19th in the league in rebounding.

5. Foye not feeling it: When Chauncey Billups was lost for the season, Randy Foye was inserted into the starting lineup so only one position would be altered by the loss. Del Negro did not want to move Mo Williams, who is in the running for Sixth Man of the Year honors, from the bench to the starting lineup, and has no one to provide a scoring punch off the bench. The problem, however, has been that Foye has not embraced the role of being a starter, at least statistically. In his past three games Foye is 5-of-26 from the field (19.2 percent) despite being a career 41.2 percent shooter. His streaky play has forced Del Negro to lean more heavily on Williams, who is averaging 13.7 points and 3.4 assists. Williams has accounted for 51.7 percent of the Clippers’ bench scoring this season and is shooting 45.6 percent from the field.