Who needs moral victories? Even missing their head coach and more than half their roster, the Clippers came to play for the real thing Saturday, upsetting the Brooklyn Nets, 120-116.

This patchwork version of the Clippers went to battle with Goliath in Gotham on New Year’s Day and spurred by Eric Bledsoe’s season-high 27 points and secured by Brooklyn-born Terance Mann’s big go-ahead bucket with 23.5 seconds left, stunned Kevin Durant and James Harden’s Nets.

The professional basketball players wearing Clippers white – three of them new to the team, coming aboard in the past few days on 10-day hardship deals – competed stubbornly all game and rode a 40-point fourth quarter to the victory.

The Nets’ loss before 17,732 fans at Barclays Center bumped them into second place at 23-11 in the Eastern Conference. The Clippers’ second and most improbable victory on a tough three-game East Coast road trip has them hovering above .500 at 19-18.

Despite Hardens’ 34-point, 12-rebound, 13-assist triple-double and Durant’s 28 points and nine rebounds, the Clippers never trailed by more than 13 points; their biggest deficit coming with 5:57 to play, when Brooklyn went up 105-92.

Even then, the Clippers obstinately, proudly ignored the memo and just kept coming.

Never mind that they got news just before heading to Saturday’s game that Luke Kennard was entering COVID-19 health and safety protocols, bringing the current total of Clippers with that designation to four – five including Coach Tyronn Lue.

Moreover, five other Clippers remain out with injuries and Marcus Morris Sr. was active but didn’t play. They chose to be cautious with the veteran forward who has been an automatic 20-plus-point-scorer of late but also has logged heavy minutes in the three games since he cleared protocols, including playing 38 in the Clippers’ 116-108 loss in Toronto on Friday night.

To make the odds steeper, they were playing their second game in as many nights and their fifth in seven days.

And they were up against a Nets team that wasn’t only very nearly fully staffed – they were missing only two players for the game – but well-rested. Brooklyn was playing just its fourth game in 14 days after three of its games between Dec. 19-23 were postponed on account of COVID-19.

“It just goes to show in this league, anything can happen on any given night,” said Brian Shaw, the Clippers’ acting coach. “You win some that you are maybe not supposed to win and then you lose some that you are maybe not supposed to lose.

“Although we felt bad about last night because we were in control of that game for a good part of it, we didn’t make the plays down the stretch that it took to win last night’s game. But tonight was the absolute opposite of that.”

In seven fourth-quarter minutes, Bledsoe scored 10 points, and had two takeaways and two assists.

His steal and bucket closed the gap 107-100 and his two free throws shortly thereafter drew the Clippers within 107-105. He muscled in for a layup that cut the lead again to 3 with 5:01 to go.

And then Amir Coffey (14 points) drained his third 3-pointer to tie it 110-110.

Durant swished a midrange jumper, but Justise Winslow (who scored six of his 11 points in the fourth quarter, when he also had four boards) attacked and drew a foul and hit both of his free throws to even the score again.

After Harden drew a foul on Winslow – Shaw challenged the call unsuccessfully – and made one of his two free throws, Winslow’s floater put the Clippers ahead 114-113 with 1:03 to play.

Then Mann – shooting from the corner of a court situated less than a mile from Brooklyn Hospital, where he was born – knocked down a 3-pointer that put the Clippers ahead 117-113 and triggered an eruption on the Clippers’ bench with 23.5 seconds left.

Mann finished with 19 points in this homecoming, a successful bookend for a trip that started with a victory at TD Garden in Boston, near where he grew up.

Bledsoe responded to a pair of Harden free throws by making two of his own and when Winslow whacked Durant to send him to the line before he could get up a 3-pointer, he missed one of his two foul shots, giving back the ball to the Clippers with a 118-116 lead.

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In his second game back after missing four games in protocols, Reggie Jackson (19 points) buried both free throws to ice it.

“It’s basketball,” Bledsoe said. “We love to play this game, we love to go out there and compete. Especially guys that’s getting an opportunity to prove that they belong in this league like Wenyen, James, Justise, Xavier. They did a great job of coming in and fighting and keeping the lead sustainable.”

Wenyen Gabriel, who donned No. 35, scored seven points in 14 minutes in his Clipper debut. James Ennis III – wearing No. 10 to match his scoring output — logged 16 minutes in his Clipper debut, which came against the team for which both he and Gabriel were temporary employees a week ago. And Xavier Moon, the 6-foot-2 guard in No. 15, played 18 minutes and had eight points.

“They had never played with Ennis before, never played with Gabriel before. As we said, Moon has only played in a couple of games for us,” said Shaw, whose message to his team Saturday therefore was simple: “Compete, play hard and have fun.”