When Donald Sterling’s racist rants were leaked to TMZ in April 2014, the Clippers were right in the middle of a first-round playoff series with the Warriors. The days leading up to Game 4 were chaotic — players had to make a decision on how to respond to the team owner’s deplorable comments.
Those events were recreated in the third episode of FX’s show “Clipped,” airing on Hulu. The depiction is fairly accurate, which makes sense given that the show is based on investigative reporting from ESPN’s Ramona Shelburne in her podcast titled “The Sterling Affairs.”
Here’s what happened with the team in the days following the Sterling news.
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The Clippers protest, explained
On April 25, 2014, TMZ Sports released audio of Sterling making racist comments in a recorded conversation with then-mistress V. Stiviano. In the recording, Sterling expressed that he did not want Stiviano bringing Black people to Clippers games.
Clippers head coach Doc Rivers was made aware of the tapes beforehand but did not realize the explosive comments that they included. Game 4 of the team’s first-round series was scheduled for two days later, on April 27. There was plenty of debate on how the players should react.
Some players considered boycotting the game, according to Yahoo’s Marc Spears. The Warriors were willing to join the Clippers if they chose that route.
“I was all in,” Warriors forward Andre Iguodala told Shelburne. “Like, shut down the whole season. Maybe that was too far, but as far as that game that day, you can reschedule it, you gotta sort this thing out because there’s some deep-rooted stuff with him that had to be addressed.”
Sterling’s attendance at the game was also up in the air until shortly before tipoff. Former player Ryan Hollins explained the situation to Shelburne.
“While this is happening, Donald goes, ‘Well, I’m still going to the game.’ He’s still in La La Land and we’re like, ‘Yo, this dude is nuts.”
MORE: Separating NBA facts from fiction in Season 1 of FX’s Donald Sterling series
Sterling was eventually convinced not to attend, although his wife Shelly did sit courtside. As she did, she witnessed the team huddling together at center court and removing their warmups. Underneath, they wore their Clippers shirts inside-out in order to hide the team’s logo. They also wore black wristbands and armbands, along with black socks.
It was forward Matt Barnes’ idea to go with the inside-out jerseys, as he told Shelburne.
“I just said, ‘Let’s turn our jerseys inside our warmup shirts, so it doesn’t say Clippers basketball on ’em.’ And then as soon as we get out of there, let’s throw them in the center court together.”
Rivers was very much against the idea of boycotting the game, as he told ESPN.
“We’ve been taught by Jesse Owens in the Olympics, who performed right in front of Hitler, that you perform. You go out and you don’t let anyone talk you out of your job, and what you dreamed of. We have a shot. And I think that’s the message. So I think this is a message of action.”
While Rivers tried to inspire the team, the Clippers were clearly distracted by the events of the past few days. They fell behind by 15 points after the first quarter and were blown out 118-97.
The Clippers eventually did recover their composure, beating the sixth-seeded Warriors in seven games. But they were eliminated from the playoffs by the Thunder in the second round.
