LOS ANGELES -- Chris Pauls teammates figure he might need more time to fully recover from his role in one of the ugliest playoff collapses in NBA history. USA Soccer Jerseys China . With the Los Angeles Clippers season riding on Game 6, Paul knows he doesnt have that luxury. The Oklahoma City Thunder are back at Staples Center on Thursday night, and the Clippers must shelve their memories of the mistakes late in Game 5 that cost them a chance to close out the series at home. Blake Griffin and Jamal Crawford went to work on Pauls mind on the bus ride to their flight home from Oklahoma City after the Clippers blew a 13-point lead in just over four minutes. The fiasco culminated in the All-Star point guards touch foul on Russell Westbrook to set up the winning free throws, sandwiched between two brutal turnovers by Paul -- all in the final 14 seconds. "He was visibly upset, and I told him that game is not on one guy," Griffin said Wednesday at the Clippers training complex. "Its not on him. We made plenty of mistakes down the stretch, plenty of mistakes throughout the game that could ultimately change the outcome. That idea that the game is on him, you understand what hes saying, but its not on him by any means. We still have two games left to play." The Clippers roller coaster of a post-season has careened into another valley after the Thunder stormed back from near-certain defeat with the help of Pauls mistakes and a much-debated out-of-bounds call with 11.3 seconds left. Clippers coach Doc Rivers hadnt changed his opinion one day after declaring the Clippers "were robbed" on that call, although he said he wont file any formal protest. The NBA issued a statement Wednesday night saying the call was made correctly in the absence of clear evidence to change it on replay review. Paul still appeared glum, giving short, clipped answers to questions about his turnovers and the Clippers ability to bounce back in Game 6. "I woke up this morning with a beautiful wife and two beautiful kids," Paul said. "At the end of the day, it is basketball, but theres a lot of guys livelihoods who depend on it, so Ive got to do my part." After three weeks of a circus atmosphere around the Clippers, Rivers still believes his young team has gathered enough resilience to force the series back to Oklahoma City for a deciding game. The Clippers played 43 outstanding minutes in Game 5 to reach the brink of what could have been a benchmark victory in a shift of the Western Conference hierarchy, only to let it slip away. Rivers thinks its a lesson the Clippers needed. "You dont win it easy," Rivers said. "Were trying to do something special here and be something special. And if youre trying to stand out in any job, its going to be hard. Youre going to face adversity, and youve just got to accept that thats part of the process. Yeah, this is hard. Its supposed to be. And thats the only thing I told our guys. Whats going on right now is exactly what should happen to win. You have to go through stuff to win, and youve just got to deal with it." The Thunder travelled to the West Coast on Wednesday with a bit of house money after the comeback by Westbrook and Kevin Durant, who combined for 17 of Oklahoma Citys 19 points in the final 9 1/2 minutes while Los Angeles fumbled, stumbled and finally crashed. Oklahoma City could advance to its third Western Conference final in four years with a victory in Game 6. But the Thunder also recall their own collapse in Game 4 at Staples Center, where they blew a 16-point lead with nine minutes left last weekend. Game 5 told coach Scott Brooks plenty about his teams tenacity. "I like the fact that we did that after the game before," Brooks said. "We had a lot of opportunities to win that game." Neither team has been significantly better in this series: Los Angeles has cumulatively outscored the Thunder 540-539 through five games, with Oklahoma Citys two-man offensive game countering the Clippers more balanced attack. But even after the exhaustion of a seven-game first-round series with Golden State and the continuing drama surrounding owner Donald Sterlings lifetime ban, the Clippers leaders think theyve still got more fight. "I think weve done a pretty good job this season and in the post-season of putting things in the past and just moving forward," said Griffin, who leads the Clippers with 24.2 points per game in the series. USA Soccer Jerseys 2019 . - The Green Bay Packers got back to work on Friday without star quarterback Aaron Rodgers. Stitched USA Soccer Jerseys .Y. - Sven Andrighetto scored once and set up two more as the Hamilton Bulldogs hung on to defeat the host Adirondack Flames 5-3 on Tuesday in American Hockey League action. https://www.cheapusasoccer.com/ .com) - His team lost in the round of 16 of the FCS playoffs, yet Northern Iowa football coach Mark Farley says his team has made a strong case to be voted to the top 5 in the final rankings.Formula One heads to its second race of the season this weekend in Malaysia with the reigning champion team threatening to withdraw from the sport, the result of the first race still under protest, and race promoters in revolt over the sound of the cars. The off-track strife has obscured the sporting promise provided by the season opener in Australia. The race in Melbourne defied those naysayers worried about the reliability of the new V6 turbo engines by having 15 finishers and a welcome shake-up to the sports pecking order; Sebastian Vettel out of the race early, Mercedes winning but with lingering engine concerns, and McLaren and even Williams back in the fight. However the sports apparent eagerness to attach a cloud to every silver lining was on show again immediately after the checkered flag fell at Albert Park. Second-place finisher Daniel Ricciardo was disqualified from his home race for exceeding the new limits on fuel flow, and his Red Bull team immediately appealed, blaming the problem on a malfunction of the FIA-approved sensor fitted to each car. The appeal will be held on April 14, after the third race in Bahrain. Red Bull team owner Dietrich Mateschitz raised the stakes further by saying such disputes will be of more importance than money when it comes to deciding whether the energy drink maker stays in the sport beyond the short term. "The question is not so much whether it makes economic sense but the reasons would be to do with sportsmanship, political influence, and so on," Mateschitz said in an interview with Austrian newspaper Kurier. "In these issues there is a clear limit to what we can accept." The other political spat emerging out of the first race was over the sound, or lack of sound, made by the new engines. Compared to the high-pitched roar of the old V8 engines, the new powertrains produced a muted purr. The outgoing chief of the Australian Grand Prix, Ron Walker, even threatened to sue for breach of contract and said the engine sound will be a major talking point at a scheduled meeting of grand prix promoters next month. Walker is a strong ally of F1s commercial chief Bernie Ecclestone, who has always opposed the cleaner, greener engines and has used thhe issue as a wedge in his ongoing wrestle with the FIA for control of the sport. USA Soccer Store. With F1s political heavyweights preoccupied by looming fights in courtrooms and boardrooms, the sports fans will be more concerned with the on-track battle which resumes at Sepang, outside Kuala Lumpur, this weekend. Mercedes is again the favourite, with Nico Rosberg having won comfortably in Australia. His fastest lap of the race was with a relatively heavy fuel load in the early stages, indicating he had plenty of speed in reserve had he needed it. Fellow Mercedes-powered team Williams looks the major threat on the race pace it showed in Melbourne, which was obscured by Felipe Massa being taken out at the first corner and Valtteri Bottas losing a wheel when he clipped a wall, costing him the likely podium finish. McLaren, which had its worst season in decades in 2013, is the surprise constructors championship leader after rookie Kevin Magnussen and Jenson Button were promoted to second and third respectively by Ricciardos disqualification. But the teams trackside chief Eric Boullier acknowledged that was flattering. "Its true that Mercedes and Williams have some pace, maybe between half and three quarters of a second quicker than the rest of the field," Boullier said. Ferrari had a mediocre performance in Melbourne and technical director James Allison agreed that "we have our work cut out to improve our car in order to compete on equal terms with the Mercedes team." Mercedes technical principal Paddy Lowe hinted that the teams advantage could be even more pronounced in Malaysia. "Sepang is a permanent race track which is generally a lot more differentiating of the cars; particularly with regard to aerodynamics," Lowe said. "As always, reliability and endurance will be crucial, but we believe this venue will provide a more accurate representation of the relative pace between teams." There will be a sombre note to the race in Sepang, as it is a short distance from Kuala Lumpurs airport, from where the ill-fated Malaysian Airlines plane this month took off on a flight which authorities now say resulted in it crashing into the ocean, killing all on board ' ' '