Rowan Kavner
LOS ANGELES – A Kings team playing half the game without DeMarcus Cousins nearly gave the Clippers a scare Saturday on Halloween night.
But much like in the opener in Sacramento, it was the Clippers (3-0) leaving the arena victoriously after another last-ditch effort from the Kings (1-2) came up short in a 114-109 win led by Blake Griffin, who finished with 37 points, nine rebounds and six assists.
“To get off to a good start and beat teams like this, especially playing a game where you play a team two times in like three or four days, it’s important to get wins like this,” Griffin said.
Next Game: 11/02
The Clippers closed the first half on a 32-16 run to turn a 12-point deficit into a four-point lead at the half, at which point the Clippers were shooting 51.3 percent to the Kings’ 40 percent. Sacramento remained close by winning on the boards, shooting 16 more shots than the Clippers in the first half and outrebounding them by 10 due in large part to 11 first-half offensive rebounds.
Then came a surprise as one of the players largely responsible for that, Cousins, didn’t return after halftime with a sore Achilles. Cousins finished with 13 points and nine rebounds, all in the first half.
The Clippers took advantage out of the break, building a lead that reached as many as 14 points. But the Kings, who erased a 15-point fourth-quarter Clippers lead in the opener in Sacramento, once again showed their resiliency even without their star center, cutting the Clippers’ lead down to four before the end of the third quarter.
“You don’t want to go through this kind of adversity of a game this early in the season,” said Jamal Crawford. “But if you can learn lessons in wins, it’s better than learning lessons in losses.”
Doc Rivers said the whole game lacked energy, and the only positive to gain from the night was the Clippers eventually won. The Clippers have preached the importance of taking care of the ball, but they committed 17 turnovers Saturday.
“I think in that third quarter we sort of had a letdown,” said Chris Paul, who had 17 points, 11 assists and six rebounds. “I was in and probably didn’t bring the energy that I could have. I think the toughest part of the night was some of those turnovers down the stretch, they were terrible.”
By midway through the fourth, following a 3-pointer and two free throws from Rudy Gay, the Kings led for the first time since the first half.
But the Clippers didn’t trail for long.
Much like the Clippers’ first matchup against Sacramento, the Clippers didn’t let losing a lead get them down for long. A 96-95 Sacramento advantage became a 103-96 lead for the Clippers, sparked once again by Griffin, who now has three straight games making double-digit field goals to start the season, all while shooting greater than 60 percent in each of those games while bullying his defenders.
Griffin said the Kings started switching on high pick-and-rolls, and with Cousins out and some of the Kings’ big men in foul trouble, the Clippers tried to exploit the mismatches, which Paul said is nothing new.
“Blake’s been doing that for a while,” Paul said. “Teams try to switch pick-and-rolls, and you’ve got to deal with him.”
He helped the Clippers take a 105-98 lead late, and it didn’t take long for the Kings in a last-ditch effort to start intentionally fouling DeAndre Jordan, who finished the night with 15 points, 18 rebounds and seven blocks.
Sacramento then started creeping back in, cutting the Clippers’ lead to two before trying to hack Jordan again with fewer than two minutes left, which meant an automatic technical foul. J.J. Redick hit the free throw to put the Clippers ahead by three, and the lead never got smaller than that for the Clippers the rest of the night.
NOTES: J.J. Redick went 8-of-9 from the floor and had 23 points … Assistant coach Mike Woodson addressed the media before the game, as head coach Doc Rivers was on the way back from Flip Saunders’ funeral … Both Rivers and George Karl attended the funeral, and both were back with their respective teams by tip-off … The Clippers play again Monday at home against Phoenix …
