Clippers can breathe a little easier after three-game winning streak

A modest three-game winning streak has eased some of the tension that enveloped the Clippers during a recent rough stretch in which they lost six consecutive games.

Now they feel is as if they have their mojo back.

“We’re going to be all right,” Chris Paul said late Friday night after his decisive play late lifted the Clippers past Sacramento. “We’re going to win games. That’s something that’s always going to happen. We’re just talented.

“But for us it’s bigger than that. Like we can go out and win 50 games. That’s easy. Not for everybody, but for us that’s easy. But for us, it’s big picture. We’re trying to build for something bigger than that.”

The next step is for the Clippers to play with the same zest Sunday afternoon against the Miami Heat at Staples Center.

And perhaps an even more important step is for Paul to remain healthy.

He missed the previous four games with a sore left hamstring.

Paul had tried to push the injury after he was first hurt against San Antonio, missing three games and then one before shutting it down for eight days.

‘”I want to hoop, regardless,” Paul said. “But the toughest thing is when you can’t. Ain’t no point coming out there and not being you and hurt the team.”

Paul played 31 minutes 26 seconds, but his time was scattered.

He played 6:39 in the first, 8:55 in the second, 6:18 in the third and 9:34 in the fourth when the game hung in the balance.

But it was an inauspicious start to game for Paul.

He took just one shot in the first, missing it. But he warmed up in the second, making all three of his shots. But then Paul didn’t take a shot in the third quarter.

He missed his only shot in the fourth, but Paul made seven of eight free throws in the final 12 minutes, six of six in the last 23.9 seconds of the game.

“You could see that he just hadn’t played,” Clippers Coach Doc Rivers said. “You could see the rust. But still his grit, his defense, all the little defensive plays that he made down the stretch, I thought was the difference in the game.”

Technical problems

The technical foul DeAndre Jordan got in the third quarter against the Kings showed just how far the Clippers still have to go despite Rivers vowing that all of them have to tone that down.

Jordan has a team-leading nine technical fouls on the season, tied for the second-most in the NBA with Kings center DeMarcus Cousins.

Rivers had said before the Memphis game Wednesday at Staples Center that he had joined forces with the Violence Intervention Program in the L.A. area, and that the money he paid for getting a technical would go to VIP.

He encouraged his players to find a charity to donate money to after they pick up a technical foul.

“DJ is going to give his technical money to my charity,” Rivers said. “So I appreciate that. Thank you very much.”

UP NEXT

VS. MIAMI

When: 12:30 p.m., Sunday.

Where: Staples Center.

On the air: TV: Prime Ticket; Radio: 570, 1330.

Records: Clippers 25-14; Heat 11-27.

Record vs. Heat: Clippers 1-0.

Update: Jordan leads the NBA with five 20-plus rebound games this season. Jordan is third in the league in rebounding, averaging 13.4 per game. Miami center Hassan Whiteside leads the league in rebounds (14.3) and is tied for fifth in double-doubles (24).

broderick.turner@latimes.com

Twitter: @BA_Turner