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Los Angeles • Did Chris Paul just add a little extra heat to this opening-round playoff series?
Not so fast, Jazz fans.
"You've got to get a different hashtag," the Clipper point guard says.
As Paul walked off the court, having just scored 21 points in a Game 2 victory, the guard turned his attention to Game 3 in Utah and, as he called them in an interview on TNT, "the homers" in Salt Lake City.
As it turns out, Jazz fans will have to find another hashtag, a different slogan, something else entirely to pump them up as L.A. comes to town.
"When you go play here, you don't really see opposing teams' jerseys. Know what I mean?" Paul explained in the aftermath of Wednesday's 99-91 victory for the Clippers. "Like, they support their team, which is good. … How can you take that in another way?"
Paul, who is used to seeing plenty of Clippers jerseys on the road, isn't expecting to see many come Friday night.
"They really support their team, and it's always been that," he said. "Yeah, you're reaching if you're thinking that's something else. You've got to get a different hashtag."
Punched early
The Jazz outscored the Clippers 24-22 in the second quarter, matched their 28 points in they third and edged them 21-20 in the fourth.
So as they went looking for where things went wrong in Tuesday's 99-91 loss in L.A., they only had to go back to the beginning.
"The first quarter is what really got us, and they hit us a little bit, set us back in Game 1, as well," said Gordon Hayward, whose team was outscored 29-18 in the opening frame. "We'll have to figure that out. Obviously it's something that they're trying to come out and be really aggressive, and tonight it seemed like they did a good job of getting DeAndre [Jordan] going. But we definitely have to be better in the first quarter, but besides the first quarter we played them pretty even. We need to figure that out."
Letting them play
Memphis coach David Fizdale was fined $30,000 for a post-game rant over the discrepancy between fouls called in Game 1 of the Grizzlies' series with the Spurs.
The Jazz took 22 free throw attempts to L.A.'s eight on Tuesday, but coach Doc Rivers wasn't complaining.
"I liked our physicality tonight, and theirs, too," he said. "Like it was a physical game. We had 60 points in the paint and only eight free throws. That's amazing when you think about it. Not that it was fouls or anything, they just allowed us to play, both teams. That was fun."
Then Rivers paused and added, "Now, I was not in the game, but it looked fun."
Down, not out
The Jazz were frustrated by their Game 2 loss, but they were still able to crack a few jokes during the post-game press conference.
When neither of Utah's two representatives on the podium wanted to field a question, Hayward tried to throw it to his Aussie teammate Joe Ingles.
"They want to hear your accent," Hayward said with a grin.
"They don't understand what I'm saying anyway," Ingles replied before Hayward eventually answered the question.
Twitter: @aaronfalk