Blake Griffin, Chris Paul lead Clippers past Spurs
LOS ANGELES — There was no need for an instant replay. Blake Griffin kept dunking.
Ferociously.
"He was attacking," Clippers coach Doc Rivers said.
The All-Star forward posterized Aron Baynes three times in memorable fashion and his high-flying Los Angeles Clippers beat the defending champion San Antonio Spurs 107-92.
"He hasn't dunked on somebody like that in a while," teammate Jamal Crawford said.
"Once we get something that works, we keep going to it," said Griffin, who finished with 26 points and 12 rebounds. "Doc calls it feeding the pig and I think that works for us."
Clippers guard Chris Paul played brilliantly — finishing with 32 points and six assists — and Crawford (17 points) provided necessary life off the bench as the Clippers take a 1-0 lead in the first round Western Conference playoff series between two title contenders.
"You always hear when the Clippers are running and dunking, they're having fun," Griffin said. "But I thought tonight when they made their run we made plays, got stops. They made another run, we took it, made plays and got stops. I thought we were pretty even throughout the course of the game."
The Clippers looked younger, fresher and much hungrier than the veteran-laden Spurs, who showed their signature resilience — slicing an 18-point deficit in half midway through the fourth quarter — but couldn't muster enough momentum to make it close. They also were ice cold shooting, finishing 33% from three-point range and uncharacteristically 54% from the free-throw line. They had won the opening game in their previous 11 playoff series. Game 2 is Wednesday night.
"They played harder longer. They played with that energy," said Spurs forward Tim Duncan, who finished with 11 points and 11 rebounds. "Hopefully we're going to ditch our entire game plan and start over."
Are the Spurs too old?
That question has surfaced plenty this decade. Yet they haven't gone away in 15 years. Why would they now? Whenever there's doubt, they've had a tendency to silence it.
"They're still the defending champs and they're going to be the defending champs every night," Rivers said. "You have two very good teams, and there is no lead safe with either team."
"We're not going that deep into it," Paul said. "It's one game."
Paul and Griffin, the Clippers' two superstars, looked as good as they have all season.
"The team goes as we go and we sort of feed off each other," Paul said of Griffin. "Blake was so aggressive early, and then it opened it up for me, and we both just played off one another, then our guys made shots."
The preordained perception heading into this series was that the team that survives has a genuine shot at winning the whole thing. That hasn't changed.
"For us, we don't get too high or too low," Crawford said. "Obviously they're the defending champs. You have to respect that."
Kawhi Leonard fought through double teams to lead San Antonio with 18 points but no one played at a particularly high level for the Spurs. Tony Parker rolled his ankle early on and managed just 10 points on 4-for-11 shooting. He expects to be fine for Game 2 and for the Spurs to weather storms like they're used to.
"It's definitely been a season of ups and downs," Parker said. "Just another great challenge for us."
DeAndre Jordan, who finished with nine points, 14 rebounds and four blocks, was subject to Greg Popovich's hack-a-player tactic in the end of the first half. San Antonio began intentionally fouling him with 1:34 left in the second quarter. In February, Popovich sent Jordan to the line 28 times. He went 4-for-8 on Wednesday.
Both teams entered the postseason with enormous momentum — Los Angeles won 14 of its final 15 games, while San Antonio won 14 of their last 16. On Wednesday, the Clippers proved to have more.
"Overall, they just played better," said Spurs guard Manu Ginobili. "Their defense was way more solid. We could not get anything easy. Even in the situations where we got something easy, we could not make shots."