Whicker: Clippers find change of venue to their liking against Mavericks

Why is Luka Doncic least dangerous when no one is allowed to guard him?

Why does Marcus Morris Sr. find the shooting corners in Dallas more comfortable than those in Staples Center?

Why did the Clippers locate any hope at all when Doncic was turning them into an NJB outfit in the first few minutes?

Why ask why? It’s the NBA playoffs.

The Clippers were not only pushed to the wall, but the plaster was cracking behind them. They trailed 30-11 on Dallas’ loud home court. They were being treated to a 44-point game by Doncic. Yet they kept hammering and nailing their way back into the game, with Kawhi Leonard and Paul George playing up to their salaries, and they took a 118-108 victory that narrows the Mavericks’ series lead to 2-1.

“We were just being resilient,” Coach Tyronn Lue said. “We made some game-plan mistakes early, but we kept scrapping and crawling, and PG and Kawhi were fantastic. We just stayed the course.”

George was on his way to an epic playoff performance when foul trouble slowed him down, but he wound up with 29 points and his second-quarter spree got L.A. the lead. Leonard attacked Dallas’ vulnerable middle and scored 36 on 13-for-17 shooting.

“Their two superstars had great games,” Dallas coach Rick Carlisle said.

“They don’t have a rim protector,” George said, “so I wanted to get the ball inside more tonight, put pressure on the basket. We hang our hat on the defensive side. We didn’t show any of that in the first two games.” The Clippers also discovered, if they didn’t know already, that Rajon Rondo and Terance Mann should be their primary point guards in the meaningful times.

And Morris drained three 3-pointers from the left corner that kept Dallas at arm’s length. He was 2 for 11 from deep space in Games 1-2.

He said he talked to brother Markieff, the Laker, at halftime and was told to “let it fly.”

“He thinks I’m the best shooter in the world,” Marcus said.

The Clippers were plus-22 in Rondo’s 26 minutes, in which he had eight assists, and he fought Doncic as effectively as anyone.

“We didn’t leave each other on an island like before,” Rondo said. “Kawhi did a good job accepting the double-teams and not forcing shots. We went small and picked them apart.”

The real story for Dallas was Tim Hardaway Jr.’s inevitable return to earth. He was 4 for 14 and had 12 points, and 7-foot-3 Kristaps Porzingis, unable to take advantage of his mismatches, missed seven of 10 shots.

Doncic did everything he could except make free throws, which can’t really be explained without paranormal consultation. He missed six of 13 free-throw attempts and is 13 for 27 for the series.

The evening started with Doncic attempting to rip away the final remaining strands of the Clippers’ soul.

He broke out to an 8-0 lead single-handedly, as the Clippers numbly kept switching center Ivica Zubac on him and watching him strike from a 3-point line that stretched from urban to exurban.

The Mavericks wound up leading 30-11, but by then Carlisle had given Doncic a break. The Clippers reacted as if the teacher had left the room  By the time Doncic returned, the Clippers had oozed within 32-27, thanks to repeated driving buckets by Leonard and George.

In a seven-possession stretch, George either scored or assisted on six baskets, and his feed to Leonard gave the Clippers an improbable 53-52 lead. They led at halftime by two after their two brand names had gone 10 for 12 in the second period, and they shot 60.9 percent in the half.

The Clippers pretty much had to do that since the Mavericks had apparently taken two doses to immunize themselves from L.A. defense. Dallas shot 54.4 percent in the two victories at Staples Center and was 35 for 70 from 3-point range. Although Lue thought the Clippers’ primary problem was on defense, they were also too imbalanced when they had the ball. George and Leonard scored 43 of their 82 field goals in the first two games.

In the fourth quarter of Game 2, the Clippers had eight solo possessions without a single pass in the frontcourt. Beyond that, they got the ball into the paint and then outside again only twice. Coaches reverently speak of “paint touches” but their main pattern was to watch their two stars operate independently, with little constructive ball movement. This changed dramatically in Game 3, at least after Doncic’s one-man demolition project cooled off.

The scoring extravaganza dried up in the third quarter, which ended with a 3-point lead for the Clippers. George drew his fourth foul during that time, although he and Leonard ended the period with 27 apiece. Terance Mann, getting a longer look at point guard, was active and went after Willie Cauley-Stein after the Dallas center popped up with a right hand. Earlier in the game, Cauley-Stein had been called for a flagrant foul when he decked a defenseless Mann going for a layup.

Rondo then relieved Mann in the fourth quarter, at the point, and upped the ante. With a 3-pointer and a driving basket after the Mavericks double-teamed Leonard, he got the Clippers ahead 102-94, thereby honoring Lawler’s Law: The first team to 100 always wins, as decreed by the 40-year play-by-play man, now happily retired.

“Maybe it’s a good thing we got down 0-2,” Morris said. “Now we can battle and keep fighting.”

Dropping the first two at home isn’t the historically proven path to victory. But this series is not quite halfway to the limit. It stopped making sense a while ago.