Clippers falter at the finish and fall to the Mavericks, 90-88

Playing without their two biggest stars could have easily left the Clippers shaken.

They accepted their fate without complaint Friday night, but that wasn’t enough to get them a win. The Dallas Mavericks defeated them, 90-88, at Staples Center on Harrison Barnes’ 10-foot shot in the lane with 3.7 seconds to play.

Winning became an even tougher task for the Clippers with Chris Paul on the sideline Friday after sustaining a strained left hamstring Thursday night against San Antonio.

Blake Griffin, their leading scorer, was already out, having undergone surgery Tuesday on his right knee. He’s expected to miss three to six weeks.

So it was up to the rest of the Clippers to keep moving ahead. But when Dallas’ Wesley Matthews made one of two free throws with 33.5 seconds to play, the Clippers found themselves tied, 88-88.

Then it was left to DeAndre Jordan to make good on his free-throw work when he was fouled with 27.4 seconds left. But the Clippers center, who is shooting 55% from the line this season, missed both free throws, leaving the scored tied as Dallas called time with 27.1 seconds left.

Barnes, the Mavericks’ leading scorer this season, made the Clippers pay by making his shot over Luc Mbah a Moute for the last of his team-high 24 points.

“I thought Luc did a good job on him,” Clippers Coach Doc Rivers said. “He scored two tough shots on Luc. I’ll take those shots all night, every day.”

With no timeouts left, the Clippers gave the ball to guard Austin Rivers. But he had the ball tipped away by Seth Curry as he dribbled across midcourt, and the Clippers were unable to get off a shot before the final horn.

It’s not Doc Rivers’ style to whine about what he doesn’t have. He is always about the next-man-up, and when he has a deep and talented roster, Rivers knows his bench can rescue the Clippers in most circumstances.

One of those players, sixth man Jamal Crawford, had 26 points. Another, Jordan, did what he does best,collecting 17 rebounds and two blocked shots to go with seven points.

But Rivers was unhappy about two things the Clippers didn’t do — take care of the ball and protect the defensive glass. They turned the ball over 20 times and gave up 14 offensive rebounds.

“What killed us was the turnovers and the offensive rebounds,” the coach said. “When one team [Dallas] takes 87 shots and you take 74, that’s 13 more field goal [attempts] than you, you’re probably going to lose the game. And even in that, we still had a chance to win the game.”

Raymond Felton started in place of Paul and had eight points. Paul Pierce started for the third straight game in place of Griffin and scored only three.

The Mavericks are a team that’s in a bad way these days. When they met the Clippers on Nov. 23 in Dallas, they were beaten by 24 points.

It hasn’t gotten much better for the Mavericks since that night.

They entered this game tied for the worst record in the Western Conference, and despite the win came out still sharing it with Phoenix at 9-21.

broderick.turner@latimes.com

Twitter: @BA_Turner