LOS ANGELES -- DeAndre Jordan sat at his locker, looking straight down at the floor and slowly running his left hand through his spongy hair.

His right hand -- the one that had just become part of San Antonio Spurs' lore -- was clasped around his left knee. His right foot was half-in, half-out of a black flip-flop.

Yep. Halfway in.

Blake Griffin's driving layup off the inbounds play with 6.9 seconds left, with the Clippers trailing by one, had grazed the right-front of the rim, caromed off the backboard and was dancing tantalizing over the left side of the rim. And there it was -- the possession, the game, and maybe, the series and the season for both teams -- suspended in mid-air.

Jamal Crawford had tried to get the ball to Chris Paul, but the Clippers' All-Star was tangled up with defensive player of the year Kawhi Leonard out of the break. Griffin, exhausted and laboring through a 1-for-9 fourth quarter on an otherwise brilliant night, lured Boris Diaw to the 3-point line, sealed him off and then wheeled toward the paint. Crawford lobbed him the ball.

"I thought it was good," Griffin would say after the Clippers' heartbreaking 111-107 loss to the Spurs on Tuesday night that put San Antonio in command with a 3-2 series lead.

The Clippers now face elimination Thursday night in San Antonio, and if it's anything like this, you have less than 48 hours to emotionally prepare yourself.

In a game nobody deserved to lose, someone had to. Same goes for the series.

"We'll be OK," Clippers coach Doc Rivers said.

I don't know how. They slept Tuesday night, maybe, and had an 11:30 a.m. PT flight to Texas, where Rivers has reserved a gym for them to do basketball things Wednesday. But knowing Rivers, this will be more of a psychological exercise than anything. This series, man ...

After the Clippers had all but erased a seven-point deficit in the final three minutes, they had one more chance -- one last possession -- to try to put away the Spurs. They are far from the first to fail. This was the Spurs' 16th Game 5 during the Tim Duncan-Gregg Popovich era, and the 13th time they refused to lose.

"Things like that happen in games that are so close," Spurs swingman Manu Ginobili said. "Sometimes, it's a free throw or a turnover or an offensive rebound. Those kinds of things happen."

This time, it was the potential winner hanging above the rim, tempting Jordan to make a split-second decision that turned out wrong.

"Dumb-ass play," he said in the locker room, where understandably, he was the last of the participants to speak. "Can't blame anybody for that but me."

Griffin had spun toward the basket and lofted a runner toward the rim without taking a dribble. The ball, representing the points that would put the Clippers up one with less than five seconds left, appeared on replays to be going in when Jordan reached up and tapped it as it was suspended above the cylinder.

It's known as basket interference, but for the Spurs, it was just the latest improbable way they've found to survive.

"We got lucky," Ginobili said. "The ball was going in."

There were so many things that happened -- so many of "those things" Ginobili was talking about. There was Leonard's putback that gave the Spurs a 97-94 lead with 4:49 left, followed by technical on Paul for picking up the ball and firing it to the official on the baseline. Rivers and Paul said they got no explanation from the officials for the tech, which only comes on such a play if there's been a delay-of-game warning first.

Then there was a turnaround jumper from the great Duncan, who finished with 21 points and 11 rebounds in 38 minutes at age 39 ... a 3-pointer by Diaw ... a loose-ball prayer from Diaw with 0.3 seconds left on the shot clock ... Duncan blocking Griffin in the lane, Griffin getting the ball back, and Diaw stealing it as the Clippers tried to tie the game at 107 in the final minute.

"That might have been the play of the game when he blocked that shot," Popovich said.

It might've been the play of the game to Popovich, but to Jordan, it was not.

"I shouldn't have touched that ball," he said.

Now, a series that quite possibly will end up being better than anything else we'll see during these playoffs -- including the Finals -- shifts to San Antonio. If not for a bounce, a carom and a ball hanging in the air -- daring Jordan to touch it -- the defending champions might have found themselves facing elimination on their home floor.

And the team trying to drive them out the playoffs, maybe for good, is learning all over again what the basketball world has known for the better part of two decades.

"You're not going to knock them out," Rivers said. "You're going to have to win by a decision."

And be prepared to have your heart broken, too.