LOS ANGELES — The Celtics got most everything they wanted Monday night against the Clippers.

They dug in on defense and held a team averaging 112.8 points to just 97 in regulation.

They got into Kawhi Leonard’s airspace and held the star to 17 points on 7-for-20 shooting.

They had a 10-point lead on the road in the fourth quarter against a club that could well be your 2020 NBA champion.

But they failed to close the deal.

The Celtics lost for just the third time in 14 games, slip-sliding away in overtime, 107-104. They are now 2-2 on the trip with Friday’s duel in Denver remaining.

“They made a lot of good plays, a few more than us,” said Brad Stevens after seeing an early season signature win dribble through the Celts’ legs. “It was a really good game, a high-level game. Both teams really competed. Even when shots weren’t going down for both sides and we were both turning it over a little bit at the end of the first half, it was still very competitive. The defense on both ends was really outstanding.

“I mean, we wanted to win. I’m disappointed we didn’t win, but hats off to them. They made enough plays. There’s going to be a lot of good clips from this. There’ll be some mistakes that we made, but I thought our guys really fought. I thought they really competed at a high level.”

Until the last second.

On the final sequence of overtime, Kemba Walker got to the rebound of a Jayson Tatum missed trey and was fouled with 1.6 seconds left. Walker received the inbounds pass in the left corner, but the 6-foot guard’s twisting deep trey was knocked off course by the 6-foot-7 Leonard.

“It wasn’t a lot of space,” said Walker after going 4 for 17 from the floor. “You know, trying to get a shot off. But, you know, we all know Kawhi and his hands and his defensive ability. He got his hands on the basketball.”

Said Stevens, “(Walker) just popped to the corner, which is a really good read. He usually cuts up the seam there, and he lost a normal person on that cut. He got enough separation to get it off against most of the league. The problem is that guy’s not normal and he’s not most of the league. He made a great play to block it. But there were a lot of opportunities that we had that we missed. So that was just a heck of a play on their part. It’s hard to get a clean look against their length and switching at that time of the game.”

The Celtics did get a number of clean looks throughout the night, but they muddied many of them. They made just one of 18 3-pointers in the opening half, clanging their first 16 before Brad Wanamaker found the strings with 3:27 left in the second quarter.

Then the C’s turned around and made seven of 10 from beyond the arc in the third period, with Tatum nailing four or five from distance on the way to his second 14-point third quarter in as many games. (He finished with 30.)

Walker hit a pair of treys and Jaylen Brown added another as the Celts stretched their lead out to 86-76 with a little more than six minutes left in regulation. But Lou Williams completed a 13-point period, and Patrick Beverley got free for two 3-pointers, and when the Celtics went more than two minutes without a point, missing five shots and turning the ball over once, the Clippers came all the way back to lead 97-94 with 20.7 seconds left.

Tatum then took the ball up high and went right, stepping on Paul George’s foot as the latter went down. He then rose and tied the game with a trey. Leonard got a decent chance at the other end, but his 3 at the buzzer rimmed out.

Beverley, averaging just 7.2 points a game coming in, hit two more treys in OT to give the Clippers a 107-102 lead in the final minute. Stevens accounted for one of those L.A. points when he got called for a technical at 3:08 (George converted) for a whistle on Walker a half minute earlier.

“He called a block; I thought it was a charge,” Stevens said. “I haven’t seen it yet. You guys can tell me. I probably should have just let it go, but I was pretty sure what I thought it was, but I don’t know.”

But it was hard to argue with a strategy that may have given Beverley a bit more room.

“You’ve got to pick your poison,” Stevens said. “I mean at some point, I thought we missed a couple of rotations, but at the same time, when you have Kawhi Leonard, Paul George and Lou Williams on the court, who are you going to run at? Who are you going to run off? Patrick made those shots. Hats off to him. We still got late challenges on most of them. The biggest plays might have been his rebounds. He was just tremendous on both sides of the floor tonight.”

Still there was a chance. Tatum dunked to get the C’s within three with 34 seconds left, and Smart gave them another life on a spectacular play when he stole a Williams pass and saved the ball off Leonard’s leg and out of bounds with 18 seconds to go.

But neither Tatum not Walker could get the Celts to another overtime, leaving them to ponder their transgressions.

“We eased up,” said Smart. “Even in regulation we eased up. We had a 10-point lead, and they got a couple easy buckets, and we had a couple costly, silly turnovers, bad shots, and they made us pay. In overtime they did the same thing. They did a really good job of executing down the stretch, and we shot the ball very poorly tonight. It was one of those nights for us, but we fought. It’s something we’ve got to put behind us and move onto the next one.

“We believe truly that we can compete with anybody in this league, but it’s going to take every possession. We can’t take it for granted. We’ve got to take every possession like it’s our last possession. We’ve got to really protect the ball and come up with the shots that we want and execute the way we want… You’ve got to credit those guys. They’re really good, and we’ve just got to be a little better.”