After somewhat surprising success in the regular season, can the Portland Trail Blazers translate that success to the playoffs against the Clippers?
Advertisement
Playoff Griffin is Back.
He finished with 19 points, 12 rebounds and 6 assists.
The Clippers defensive strategy for game one was pretty obvious. “I think the time off, the practices, the fact that now he has been back for awhile, I think that all came through tonight”.
The Clippers were led by Chris Paul, who went 10-of-19 from the field to finish with a game-high 28 points, 11 assists and six rebounds in 33 minutes.
Bulling his way to the rim, finding teammates for baskets and dunking with abandon, Griffin proved he has regained his form with his best game yet since returning from a 45-game absence two weeks ago. I guess I was wrong about that.
For the Clippers, they may pull a similar move by having Paul check either Aminu or Harkless and shifting around Mbah-Moute onto Lillard (or CJ McCollum) and sliding Griffin onto whoever is leftover.
Blake Griffin ran the floor hard. He especially looked like the real Blake Griffin when he backed down Damian Lillard, who proceeded to flop, trying to draw a charge on Griffin. Chris Paul tops in assists with 10.0 and in steals with 2.1 per game. Nobody is giving them a chance in this series. After all, Noah Vonleh has looked like a fish out of water all season and Meyers Leonard was already lost for the season with an injury.
Winning the first game of the series gives the Clippers just a little bit of breathing room moving forward. McCollum. He only had nine points in the game.
Portland ranks sixth in points per game with 105.2, while Los Angeles ranks seventh in points allowed with an average of 100.2 given up.
The 3rd quarter started out sloppy for both teams.
And Blake wasn’t done with Plumlee.
Advertisement
Really, the Blazers didn’t have any answers for the Clippers on either end of the court in the 3rd, and the Clippers extended their lead to 15, 81-66. After missing the time due to injury plus a four-game suspension, Griffin played the final five games of the regular season. If the Clippers keep that trend up, even if it’s only for a couple of games, the Blazers will struggle immensely. Jamal Crawford and Austin Rivers came off the bench to score 13 and 11 points, respectively, for Los Angeles, which beat Portland for the fourth consecutive meeting. If you get too physical, then it’s a foul, because, you know, he’s spinning in there and jumping in the middle of the spin, and it’s tough to defend. If you take away contributions of the Clippers sharp-shooting guard, that number drops to 33.7 percent, a mark that would plummet L.A.to the bottom of the league (26th to be exact). Chris Paul knows he has other supporting cast around him. Paul would walk it off, and seemed to be fine. The Clippers smothered the Portland guards on pick-and-rolls, and Jordan was up to the challenge when he found himself switched on smaller players on the perimeter. The 73-9 Warriors will make short work of the Houston Rockets, San Antonio went 40-1 at home and should sweep the injured Memphis Grizzlies and the Oklahoma City Thunder will outlast the gritty Dallas Mavericks. After that, it was just a lot of free throws.
