Blake Griffin corralled the rebound and dished an outlet pass to Chris Paul, then took off running. With Pablo Prigioni sneakily trying to snatch Paul’s dribble, Paul fired the ball back to his All-Star power forward, who was now at half court and in full stride.

Griffin surveyed the array of options on the floor: J.J. Redick fading to the left corner; DeAndre Jordan dashing toward the rim and Matt Barnes spotting up in the right corner.

Griffin head-faked as if he was going to throw a lob to Jordan before side-stepping and attacking Terrence Jones, who was retreating. Griffin momentarily lost his balance and began to spin in the air, flinging up a wildly off-balanced, 360-degree layup.

Somehow, the shot banked in. It was that kind of night for Griffin, who always seemed to calculate a marvelous finish despite logic-defying takeoffs. The basket bumped him to a game-high 28 points on efficient 12-of-15 shooting.

The Clippers led the Rockets 86-68 with 4:13 remaining in Game 6 of the Western Conference semifinals at Staples Center. Two minutes later, the Clippers had their largest lead of the night at 89-70. With a victory, the Clippers, who had a 3-2 series lead, would advance to the franchise’s first conference finals in their then-45-year history.

You know what happened next.

Led by improbable shooting performances from Josh Smith (19 points on 4-of-7 3-point shooting) and Corey Brewer (19 points) while MVP runner-up James Harden sat on the bench for nearly the entire fourth quarter, the Rockets outscored the Clippers 49-18 — including 40-15 in the fourth quarter — over the game’s final 14 minutes. An almost 20-point lead turned into a double-digit loss, with the Clippers falling 119-107 to Houston to even the series at 3-3.

“What could’ve went wrong, went wrong,” Doc Rivers said afterward.

Thursday, May 14, 2020, marks the five-year anniversary of one of the most painful moments in the Clippers’ star-crossed history. The Rockets went on to win Game 7, 113-100, rallying from a 3-1 series deficit to cement one of the worst collapses in NBA postseason history. It was the closest the Clippers have come to making a conference final with a 97.7 percent chance to win the game late in the third quarter, according to inpredictable. Since then, the Clippers haven’t advanced past the first round.

It still haunts some of the players to this day.

“That year, I felt like we had a chance,” Redick said of the Game 6 loss to the Rockets. “If I’m being truthful, after that, we did not have a chance. We didn’t have the mental toughness.”

There are countless would-be do-overs throughout Clippers history, but that 2015 postseason defeat is arguably the worst of all, as it was the closest the organization had been to the success that has long eluded the once-woebegone franchise.

If the Clippers could have a do-over, what would they have done differently?

The 2014-15 Clippers were on borrowed time.

The team had made several gambles — Chris Douglas-Roberts, Jordan Farmar, Nate Robinson, Ekpe Udoh and Jared Cunningham (over Joe Ingles, no less) — that didn’t work and decimated the back-end of the rotation. The backup big rotation of Glen “Big Bay” Davis, Spencer Hawes and Hedo Turkoglu was lackluster.

In mid-January, the Clippers traded for Austin Rivers, a polarizing move given his father, Doc, was both president of basketball operations and head coach. But the younger Rivers injected some life into a hapless bench unit, even if his presence elicited some side-eyes.

This is all to say that, despite having one of the best starting units in the league, including three All-NBA candidates in Paul, Griffin and Jordan, the Clippers had only one bench player they could rely on — Jamal Crawford, who, despite being a perennial Sixth Man of the Year award winner and candidate at the time, was a streaky scorer and a poor defender that saw his shooting efficiency nosedive against physical playoff defense.

One of the first numbers that jump out in the boxscore from Game 6 is Crawford’s game-worst minus-27 plus-minus. Austin Rivers was a considerable negative at minus-14. Crawford and Rivers managed these numbers, mind you, in 24 and 14 minutes, respectively.

Single-game plus-minus can be a noisy metric, but it was telling of Crawford’s performance in the 2015 postseason. He was a net-negative in six of the Clippers’ seven losses (he was a 0 in their Game 2 loss in Houston). In the final three games of the Rockets series, Crawford was a combined minus-65, posting a minus-16 or worse in each game. During those playoffs, he averaged 12.7 points (his second-lowest average as a Clipper) while shooting 36.0 percent from the floor and 24.3 percent on 3-pointers.

In Game 6, Crawford and Rivers combined for just 14 points on 6-of-21 shooting. Overall, the Rockets’ reserves outscored the Clippers’ 37-16. Brewer scored one point fewer than the Clippers’ bench in the fourth quarter alone.

Depth was always an issue during the 2013 to 2017 Lob City years — the 2011-12 and 2012-13 rosters were both 10 deep — as the cost of maintaining the talented core increased and Rivers increasingly favored older veterans that were injury-prone and/or on the downhill of their careers.

But the 2014-15 Clippers were the shallowest of all of those squads. If you swapped any of the other benches during the Lob City era — be it 2012, 2013, 2014, 2016 or 2017 — for the 2015 bench, the Clippers almost certainly get past Houston. In a cruel coincidence, the year the Clippers needed depth for their most realistic run at a title, they didn’t have any.

From a tactical perspective, there are a few adjustments the Clippers likely would have made if given a do-over.

First, tightening an already tight rotation would be priority No. 1. Doc Rivers would be risking injury and/or effectiveness if he played Griffin (42 minutes), Jordan (42) or Paul (41) more minutes, but Redick (36) and Barnes (31) could have played more.

Barnes, in particular, was a better option than Crawford, whose defense led to over a half-dozen Houston layups, 3-pointers and offensive rebounds (which is to say nothing of his shot selection). Barnes was just as bad as Crawford offensively in Game 6, but at least he provided rebounding (10 boards) and much better defense.

Second, the Clippers didn’t go to Griffin enough in post-up and isolation situations — or the dangerous 4-1 pick-and-roll in which Paul screens for Griffin to attack a guard with a runway. The Clippers instead decided to have Griffin screen for Paul at the top of the floor, setting up Griffin to catch the ball just inside the arc and then try to drive on a swarm of Rockets, who weren’t defending the non-Redick shooters.

The Clippers inexplicably went away from actions designed to get Griffin below the charge circle, perhaps their most effective option in Game 6 aside from transition points. Any time Griffin was able to catch the ball on the block or mid-post and attack a non-Dwight Howard defender one-on-one, he scored, was fouled or kicked out to an open shooter.

Griffin, for his part, came up short in the fourth quarter, going scoreless on 0-of-5 shooting. After bulldozing the Rockets’ bigs for much of the game, and the series, he started playing with finesse, launching from too far away — even by his standards — and trying to flick in layups instead of going up to dunk or draw contact. He appeared indecisive with the ball, looking to pass when he had an open shot or driving the lane, and then forcing up looks when the defense had collapsed on him and shooters were open.

Perhaps Griffin was fatigued at the end of the game. It’s understandable he wouldn’t attack with the same verve. But he made confusing decisions.

Third, the Clippers slowed the game to a crawl when they had the ball. Through the first three quarters, the Clippers scored 24 fast-break points, which is an exceptional figure over a full game. Doing so in three quarters is almost unfathomable. The Clippers were ramming the ball down the Rockets’ throats, including scoring on them after Houston made baskets, which is a standard non-negotiable for NBA defenses.

But over the final 6:47 of the game, the Clippers only attempted one shot in the first 10 seconds of the shot clock, eliminating one of their greatest advantages against Houston. Again, that might have been a case of fatigue, which brings us back to the broader conversation about the roster’s depth.

“I thought we were trying to run the clock out, and we stopped playing,” Rivers said. “We walked the ball up the floor. I thought we got very tentative offensively. Very few people even wanted to shoot in stretches. It happens. But it’s awful to watch.”

And finally, Paul was too deferential down the stretch. He made a habit of picking his spots through the first three quarters and then ramping up in the fourth, where he established himself as an elite clutch performer. He had used that script just a week and a half earlier in Game 7 against the Spurs, knocking in the biggest shot in Clippers history over the outstretched arms of Tim Duncan.

But with Jason Terry pressuring him full court, and the Clippers’ offense stagnating, Paul continued to selectively attack and seek out his teammates. Given the drought the Clippers’ offense struck midway through the fourth, one post-up or mid-range jumper from Paul might have gotten the Clippers back in rhythm.

Though he was still dealing with a left hamstring strain, Paul scored 31 points and dished 11 assists, so it’s not as if the injury prevented him from being aggressive.

“We gave this one away,” Rivers said. “There’s no doubt about that.”

Call it the Clipper Curse, karma from the Basketball Gods, or some other predetermined intervention from the universe, but multiple things went wrong that were beyond the Clippers’ control in Game 6.

They missed some solid looks, including multiple open 3-pointers and even a Jordan dunk. They shot just 18.2 percent (4-of-22) in the fourth, their worst shooting percentage in a playoff quarter in the previous 20 seasons. They didn’t score a field goal between the 6:47 mark and the 0:02 mark.

“Each miss, I thought the pressure mounted, honestly,” Rivers said. “It happens, but it’s hard to happen when you have a lead like that.”

This was more of a collapse than a comeback, but the Rockets deserve more credit than they have received.

Houston could’ve given up at multiple points and almost did in the third quarter when the Rockets lost their composure. Howard picked up a flagrant foul 1 against Griffin and Harden received a technical foul for shoving Griffin. Houston was in lockstep defensively, using its length and athleticism to pack the paint and suffocate the Clippers’ offense.

Harden and Howard didn’t even make a field goal in the fourth, but it didn’t matter because Smith and Brewer, both past their primes, played the games of their lives. Both sub-29.0 percent 3-point shooters, Smith and Brewer combined for 6-of-12 from deep, including multiple off-the-dribble step-back 3s from Smith.

At the time, and in retrospect, the 2014-15 Clippers were better than the 2014-15 Rockets. The Clippers led five of the seven games by at least 15 points, winning only three of those, and they blew out Houston by a combined 58 points in Games 3 and 4 in Los Angeles and were on pace to do so again in Game 6. They were the better team for approximately 17 1/2 of the first 24 quarters of the series.

Ahead of Game 6, the Clippers had become the title favorites to certain pundits and statistical models, including ESPN’s Basketball Power Index. But then Smith hit those 3s, Brewer leaked out and dunked in transition and Terry buried an uncontested mid-range jumper, sealing the worst loss in franchise history.

“Sometimes you want stuff so bad that you can’t get it because you’re in your own way, and I thought we clearly got in our own way tonight,”  Rivers said.

It’s unclear how winning this game and making the conference finals would’ve changed Lob City’s fate. The Clippers were going to run out of gas at some point given the construction of the roster, potentially flaming out in the conference finals or Finals. It was inevitable.

Realistically, they probably would have lost in the conference finals to the Warriors, who had won three of the four games in the season series and were on the brink of forging a dynasty.

Does that change the core’s future? Does Paul stay in 2017? Are the Big Three still together in 2020? These are questions we’ll never know the answers. It’s too far from reality to even try to hypothesize. The Clippers might actually be in a better spot in 2020 because of Lob City’s failures, with a legitimate championship window now. They certainly would have preferred to have a conference finals on the franchise’s resume, but things might not have been much different after all.

Twenty years from now, if you were to go back and show a basketball fan one game that encapsulated both the potential and disappointment of the Lob City era — a group with the best five-year run to not make a conference finals — this would be the game. This was the good, the bad and the ugly of these Clippers.

For three quarters, we saw the best of them. Griffin faced up and attacked as a dynamic ball-handling freight train. Paul commanded one of the game’s prettiest and most efficient offenses and played cornerback defensively. Redick whizzed around floppy actions into open jumpers and drives. And Jordan rolled into space and swatted shots like they were volleyballs in the South Bay.

But we also saw the group’s limitations — the awkward spacing of the Griffin-Jordan pairing; Paul overthinking the game clock and not realizing the moment was slipping away; Jordan getting intentionally fouled and occasionally relaxing as a rebounder and defender; Redick, Barnes, Crawford and Austin Rivers bricking the wide-open shots the Clippers needed them to make.

In a recent episode of the “All The Smoke” podcast hosted by Barnes and former Clippers forward Stephen Jackson, Barnes asked Paul about his time with the Clippers and how they were one of the best teams to never win a title.

“It’s seriously one of those things you don’t realize what you have until it’s gone,” Paul said. “You know what I mean? I think about it at times.”

We didn’t realize it either, but it was all over in 14 minutes.