The Clippers won 96-94 in the most recent meeting in Los Angeles on a JJ Redick buzzer-beater on March 24.
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Blake Griffin is healthy just in time for the playoffs.
The “Beat L.A.!” chants have already started in Portland, Trail Blazers fans bellowing those words in the final moments of their team’s last regular-season game.
“The game that they won, they outrebounded us by a considerable margin, so the rebounding battle is important because they play hard and their bigs crash the boards”, Griffin said.
The Clippers are powered by Chris Paul, J.J. Redick, Blake Griffin and DeAndre Jordan. They’re big and traditional.
The young kids of the Trail Blazers will have a lot of improvement to do in Game 2 of the series, but showed promise in stretches at Staples Center on Sunday. They’ve allowed 94.7 points per game during that span, which is lower than their season average of 104.3.
In game 1 the Portland Trail Blazers were crushed by the Los Angeles Clippers in a 115-95 loss. Their defense held Portland to seven points over the final 5:50 of the quarter. The matchup’s X factor will also be the mind game revolving around Clippers C DeAndre Jordan, whose Achilles heel is free-throw shooting. Given how much heavy lifting Paul does on offense, it would be wise to try to find him “rest” on defense as much as possible, especially when you consider how much work defenders have to put in guarding McCollum and Lillard in Portland’s whirling offensive system. “We had guards on him sometimes”. 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. One oddsmaker predicted Portland would win about 26 games.
In the other locker room, the Trail Blazers head into the game with records of 44-38 both ATS and SU.
“He was great, assertive”.
“I’m not really anxious about the whole, ‘Can he get back or will he be able to play at a high level, ‘” Griffin said. “That’s how we had to play this year, and it was good for us in the long run”, Rivers said. It didn’t help his team get any closer to a comeback.
The fourth quarter was mostly a formality – Portland never threatened as LA maintained a comfortable cushion behind baskets from Crawford and Austin Rivers.
Heading into tonight I’m pessimistic but hoping for the best, which pretty much describes this Blazers season overall. The Blazers, meanwhile, lost four of five starters from a playoff team that exited in the first round. Though, that may not be enough to defeat this Clippers team. JJ Redick, who was questionable to play throughout the afternoon, started hot, connecting on his first two jumpers as the Clippers built a small lead. His post-up numbers were decent, but he’s obliterated opponents in isolation all year, averaging 1.05 points per possession, which ranked in the 92nd percentile, per NBA.com.
Just more than two minutes later, he made a nice little spin move in the paint and finished off the sequence with a layup.
With Griffin out, Rivers had no choice.
Los Angeles needs Griffin to be the best player (or close to it) in that series for it to have a chance to advance.
Sunday night, the Clippers hurt the Blazers in a bit of a throwback fashion.
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All quotes in this article were obtained firsthand unless otherwise noted.
