2012 N.B.A. Playoffs - Clippers Get Taste of Winning, but That's All for Now - NYTimes.com LOS ANGELES - The Los Angeles Clippers never had a season like this one, even if being the Clippers means they will have to show they can match what they did next season, or in the next decade or two. If the Clippers did not take over the city from the Lakers, a heretofore unimaginable possibility, they made it close, finishing one game behind them in the N.B.A."s Pacific Division. Like the Lakers, the Clippers won a seven-game, first-round series. But the Clippers" season ended Sunday in a 102-99 loss as the San Antonio Spurs completed a four-game sweep, one day after Oklahoma City went ahead, three games to one, over the Lakers. Things have changed since the convoluted negotiations that brought Chris Paul, not to the Knicks, his first choice, or to the Lakers, who thought they had acquired him, but to the lowly Clippers. At the end, with Paul slowed by a groin injury, Caron Butler playing with a broken left hand and Blake Griffin with a sore knee, before needing four stitches after one of his teeth went through his lip, the Clippers came from 12 points behind in this elimination game, went ahead by 5 in the last 4 minutes 54 seconds and fought to the wire, with Mo Williams unable to get off what might have been a game-tying 3-pointer. And then, when it was over, they refused all congratulations. "I mean, we had a good season, but I think it's a good sign for our team - there are no moral victories," Paul said. It's not like we made it to the playoffs, it's all good and well. We should have still been playing. Paul's competitiveness flowed throughout the roster. The Clippers took a 3-1 lead in the first round, even as Memphis dominated play, then could not put away the Grizzlies until Game 7 in Memphis. "He doesn't have that extra burst that he usually has, that extra pop, you can see that," Clippers Coach Vinny Del Negro said of the physically hampered Paul. But we're not in the second round of the playoff without Chris Paul. He gives you everything he has all the time. I can't say how much he's brought to the team, the organization, the city. The playoff series victory over Memphis was only the third in franchise history. The Clippers beat the Denver Nuggets, 4-1, in the first round in 2006, and their forefathers, the Buffalo Braves, beat Philadelphia, 2-1, in the first round in 1976. Change became a constant in the team's first 20 seasons here under a famously thrifty owner, Donald T. Sterling. Almost always, the Clippers finished out of the playoffs. Players left as soon as they were contractually able. In 1993, guard Ron Harper, dismayed at having his one-year option picked up by the Clippers, compared playing for them to being in prison. But while the Clippers have become prosperous in their 12 seasons at the Staples Center, and the potential of the current team dwarfs its predecessors, its stars have yet to be secured long term. Paul's contract runs out in 2013, Griffin's in 2014. Del Negro's contract runs out June 1, unless the Clippers pick up his one-year option, but the team has yet to commit itself. "We have said that as far as Vinny's contract went, we would wait until after the playoffs," Neil Olshey, the team's vice president for basketball operations, said. The playoffs have now ended. We'll talk to our players and then I'll sit down with Vinny. Griffin is eligible to sign an extension this summer but declined to comment on that possibility after Sunday's game. Meanwhile, Coach Gregg Popovich of the Spurs was gracious in victory, praising the Clippers and their effort. "Their aggressiveness, their toughness, was there every single night," he said. I don't think we're as athletic and as physical as they are, and we had to get through that. The Spurs have won 18 consecutive games - the last 10 of the regular season and 8 in the playoffs, against Utah and the Clippers. When asked if losing to perhaps the best team in the league made it any easier, Paul said no. "I want to win, so it's not a great feeling, sitting here and answering what we could have done and should have done," he said. I tip my hats to the Clipper fans, the Clipper faithful who supported us all year long. I want them to know this isn't it. For now, though, it is.