{"id":261196,"date":"2025-11-04T04:30:08","date_gmt":"2025-11-04T04:30:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/261196\/"},"modified":"2025-11-04T04:30:08","modified_gmt":"2025-11-04T04:30:08","slug":"kawhi-leonard-wins-it-at-buzzer-clippers-hold-off-hot-shooting-pelicans-126-124","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/261196\/","title":{"rendered":"Kawhi Leonard wins it at buzzer, Clippers hold off hot-shooting Pelicans 126-124"},"content":{"rendered":"

INGLEWOOD, Calif. — – Kawhi Leonard<\/a> made a buzzer-beater and finished with 34 points to give the Los Angeles Clippers a 126-124 win over the New Orleans Pelicans<\/a> on Friday night in the first game of the NBA Cup group stage for both teams.<\/p>\n

Leonard pump-faked to get Jeremiah Fears<\/a> up in the air and then rose up for a long 2-point shot to win it after Zion Williamson<\/a> had tied it with 9.6 seconds remaining by making two free throws.<\/p>\n

James Harden<\/a> had 24 points and 14 assists, and the Clippers have won all three home games to start the season. Derrick Jones Jr<\/a>. scored 16 points, and Ivica Zubac<\/a> had 14 points and 11 rebounds.<\/p>\n

Jordan Poole<\/a> had 30 points and made seven 3-pointers, Williamson finished with 29 points, but the Pelicans remained winless through five games. It is their worst start since dropping eight in a row to begin the 2016-17 campaign.<\/p>\n

The Clippers had led by as many as 17 in the second half but their struggles to defend the Pelicans’ shooting from 3-point range made things harder than they had to be.<\/p>\n

New Orleans ended up 18 of 37 (48.6%) from 3, but it wasn’t enough to overcome a dynamic showing from Los Angeles, led by Harden as both a scorer and distributor.<\/p>\n

Harden had 14 points and five assists in the second quarter alone, including a four-point play when Yves Missi<\/a> didn’t give him room to land on a long 3.<\/p>\n

Up next<\/p>\n

Pelicans: Visit the Thunder in Oklahoma City on Sunday.<\/p>\n

Clippers: Host the Heat on Monday.<\/p>\n

——<\/p>\n

AP NBA: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/nba<\/a>br\/]<\/p>\n

Copyright \u00a9 2025 ESPN Internet Ventures. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"INGLEWOOD, Calif. — – Kawhi Leonard made a buzzer-beater and finished with 34 points to give the Los…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":261197,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[153508,64,63,794,17932,590,7210,85],"class_list":["post-261196","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-153508","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-espn","tag-la-clippers","tag-nba","tag-new-orleans-pelicans","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261196","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=261196"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261196\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/261197"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=261196"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=261196"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=261196"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}