Griffin had 34 points, nine assists and eight rebounds, and Crawford scored a season-high 37 points to lead the Clippers to a 101-96 victory over the Pistons at Staples Center.
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LOS ANGELES-The Los Angeles Clippers drew up the first play of Saturday’s game for Jamal Crawford, in the hopes he would find a rhythm.
Every so often, Jamal Crawford gets to remind everyone that he can still be a prolific scorer.
“We got up a little bit more in pick-and-rolls”, he said. His stats do not look like much perhaps, but he is a good influence on defense and makes quality hustle plays.
“Their defense was good and we played poorly”, Pistons coach Stan Van Gundy said.
With the Clippers leading 95-94, Paul Pierce missed and Griffin scrambled for the offensive rebound. Jackson made two free throws with 8.2 seconds remaining to slice the lead to one but Crawford converted a pair of foul shots with 7.3 seconds left. There is familiarity between a unit consisting of Jamal Crawford and Blake Griffin, which proved highly beneficial in terms of maximizing Crawford’s usefulness on the team. Ilyasova and Jackson had 20 points apiece for the Pistons …
Since allowing 92.2 points per game in their first five, the Pistons (5-4) have surrendered an average of 103.5 on 49.4 percent shooting in their previous four.
Crawford and Griffin did not want to go home empty-handed, as they turned up their game and eventually took the lead 81-80 in the fourth quarter of the game.
Forward Ersan Ilyasova and point guard Reggie Jackson both scored 20 points for the Pistons, while center Andre Drummond finished with 18 points and 19 rebounds. “They just found a way to get hot”.
LaMarcus Aldridge had 17 points and 19 rebounds to help San Antonio beat Philadelphia.
Detroit’s Kentavious Caldwell-Pope missed a potential tying 3-pointer with four seconds to go.
Detroit led by as much as 17 before taking a 60-51 lead at the break.
Van Gundy said he would have like to have fouled the Clippers’ DeAndre Jordan, another notoriously bad free-throw shooter, but the Pistons weren’t in the penalty, so they would have had to foul repeatedly to get in that situation. Going down the stretch, the Pistons really didn’t have anyone to depend on for buckets and it really cost them as they scored just 36 points in the second half and just 16 in the fourth quarter. It was a throwback game for the 35-year-old shooting guard.
The most minutes Crawford had played in a game this season was 29.
And Griffin posted 34 points, nine assists and eight rebounds. “We have to be better than that”.
Gores, a native of Genesee County who lives in Beverly Hills, Calif., gets to see his Pistons from courtside consecutive days.
Stanley Johnson was playing a homecoming of sorts and the nerves initially showed as his first shot was a driving air ball and he followed it up with an absolute brick three-point attempt on his second shot.
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– LegionNBA (@MySportsLegion) November 14, 2015Trying to figure out how big of a deal it is that Mbah a Moute has passed Lance in the rotation tonight…
