Before the Los Angeles Clippers took down the New Orleans Pelicans 139-123, the team looked to be in dire straights. 

They had lost seven-straight games and the team simply looked disjointed with chemistry failing and effort failing even more. One of the most discouraging aspects of the team's losses were how many of them were coming as the result of blown leads or outmatched effort.

All seven of the Clippers' losses so far this season came after the team was leading to start the fourth quarter and for a moment, it looked like the game against the Pelicans was shaping up to be the eighth. 

While Los Angeles held a seven-point lead to star the fourth quarter, New Orleans was in hot pursuit and was slowly surging in the fourth quarter to trim down the lead that Los Angeles had built.

After the events of the season so far, it would have been natural for panic to start to set in as the seemingly-inevitable fate of losing in the fourth came back into view for the Clippers, but unlike previous games, they didn't fold.

In fact, the Clippers answered everything that the Pelicans were giving them and then some. The Clippers outscored the Pelicans 37-28 in the fourth quarter to close out the game for their second win of the season.

With some momentum behind them and a fourth quarter that remedied some of their past issues, head coach Ty Lue is hoping it can set a positive precedent for the team moving forward.

"It was good for us to see... Kept our composure, got tougher instead of thinking 'Oh, here we go again," Lue said (via The Sporting Tribune). "I thought our guys really refocused in that time out, came out and head the right intent and got our mojo back."

Basketball is a game so defined by the energy that surrounds a certain team that steps in the right direction, even small ones, can contribute to big changes in momentum.

Ideally, that's what the Clippers' win against the Pelicans can be for Los Angeles, but that doesn't meant there isn't more work to be done. The Clippers are still 21st in the NBA in average fourth-quarter points at 25.8 per game and that number will need to keep rising if they want to fully exorcise their late-game demons.

But that process does have to start with one step, which they've taken. The work that has to follow is for that first step to turn into a consistent pattern of success and stability, rather than late-game chaos. 

There's a long season ahead for the Clippers to prove that their big fourth quarter against the Pelicans wasn't a momentary ray of light, but if there was any way for them to get their "mojo back" as Lue put it, beating the Pelicans they way that they did would be it.