Five takeaways from the Clippers’ 96-88 loss to Portland

A playoff game that was theirs for the taking fell through the Clippers’ grasp. Sound familiar? Their showing Saturday night at the Moda Center felt like a song on repeat. They lost, 96-88, to the Portland Trail Blazers in Game 3 of their first-round playoff series. Here are five take-aways from a game that trimmed the Clippers’ lead in the best-of-seven series to 2-1:

1. Closing time belonged to the Trail Blazers. They made all the plays over the game’s final 3:52 after Jamal Crawford’s three-point play had given the Clippers an 85-81 lead. Portland outscored the Clippers 15-3 the rest of the way, thanks to some grit from Maurice Harkless, of all people, on a putback dunk and a big C.J. McCollum three-pointer. The Clippers’ Blake Griffin tried a poorly timed three-pointer that predictably missed, and Chris Paul airballed his own contested three-pointer. It wasn’t a collapse on par with the Clippers’ Game 5 against Oklahoma City in 2014 or Game 6 against Houston in 2015, but it certainly seemed like a potential turning point in a series that tightened considerably heading into Game 4 on Monday. “When it was winning time, they made the better plays,” Paul said. “The coaches always say it’s a make-miss league, but at the end of the day you have to give yourself a chance, which means you have to execute.”

2. Griffin looked like someone who had been out for more than three months. His jumper was off again, and he appeared out of rhythm. He made only five of 16 shots and had a turnover in the final minutes during a possession when the Clippers trailed by only three points. “I’ve got to be better at the end of the game in order for us to win,” Griffin said. “I take that one. It’s on me.” The Clippers had won their first seven games with Griffin since his return following a 45-game absence, but Coach Doc Rivers said an uneven performance was to be expected. “He just had a tough night,” Rivers said. “You don’t miss three months of basketball and just come back and be great. There’s going to be nights he’s going to struggle probably throughout this run, and like I said before the playoffs, there’s nothing we can do about it. I’m happy to have him back.”

3. The Clippers got out-toughed. The Trail Blazers were the ones who seized most of the loose balls and played with the extra oomph of a team that was worried about impending elimination. “They pushed and we didn’t really push back,” Griffin said. “You have to be the team that initiates it. You can’t be the team that responds to it. They did everything, I felt like, they wanted to do.”

4. Mason Plumlee outplayed DeAndre Jordan? Yes indeed. Plumlee had 21 rebounds, nine assists and six points and did not miss five of six free throws over the final four minutes, as Jordan did in partially sealing the Clippers’ fate. “Plumlee’s a good, athletic big who helps his team out a lot,” Jordan said after missing seven of 10 free throws and finishing with 16 rebounds and 11 points. “A lot of rebounds came to him. He worked for a lot of them, but this game is behind us. We’re looking forward to [Game] 4.”

5. Nothing comes easy for the Clippers in the playoffs. They have never led a series three games to none, much less swept a series, in 17 tries. Now it looks like a series that could have been theirs to close out in relatively easy fashion could go six or seven games unless they regroup quickly. “We really don’t want to go into these long playoff series,” Clippers shooting guard J.J. Redick said. “Anything can happen as we showed last year against Houston. When you have a team down and we had a four-point lead against a team we had 2-0. We had a great opportunity to go up 3-0 and on Monday we’ll have an opportunity to go up 3-1.” Said Paul: “Game 4 is a big game for us. This was too, but we have to let this one go. But we really need to get Game 4.”

ben.bolch@latimes.com

Twitter: @latbbolch