Blake Griffin Rejected At The Rim By Festus Ezeli

A few fabulous theater is nearly guaranteed.

Blake Griffin had 22 points and 10 rebounds, and the unbeaten Los Angeles Clippers hung on down the stretch for a 102-96 victory over the Phoenix Suns on Monday night. According to Sam Amick of USA Today, coach Doc Rivers said his point guard couldn’t go at the end because of the groin. “Doc had drawn up a good play, but when I went out there, (Powell) said I probably shouldn’t go back out there, just to make sure I’d be all right”. “But don’t bet on it”.

But Rivers was nothing but effusive in talking about the Warriors heading into the first of four matchups in 2015-16. “No matter how many points you win by, the records are the same”. They’re a really good basketball team. “They remind you of us (Rivers” Boston Celtics team) in 2008.

But while most of the summertime headlines focused on the head-on-a-swivel antics of free agent center DeAndre Jordan and his change of heart about going to Dallas, Rivers got to work on patching the glaring hole in his lineup. We were beating teams like 30 every night.

After the game, the Clippers posted the final score of their game and made mention of the fact that the Grizzlies had just lost to the Warriors by 50. They were full of praise for their rivals as they looked ahead to Wednesday. That’s Blake Griffin with a wide open lane to the basket and his team down by two. Instead, they traveled to Houston and got trampled by the Rockets. Their defense is outstanding.

“I was supposed to pull over early, and I was just a tad bit late”, Ezeli said.

While nobody questions Paul’s toughness-especially after he fought through a hamstring injury in the playoffs last year-he has struggled to stay healthy in previous seasons. He already made one major shift during the preseason when it quickly became clear that a second unit that put Stephenson, Crawford and Austin Rivers on the court together was a bad fit.

For the first 6 minutes of the 4th quarter, the Clippers’ and Suns’ reserves traded bucket after bucket, playing to a virtual draw with LA maintaining a 4-point lead. Obviously, Redick is amongst the best of the league in * a href=”http://stats.nba.com/tracking/#!/player/shooting/?sort=CATCH_SHOOT_FG_PCT&dir=1&Season=2014-15&SeasonType=Regular%20Season&CF=GP*GE*50″ target=”_blank” *catch and shoot field goal percentage at 46.7 percent, but he is also more than respectable shooting off the dribble. They won, and they’re still hungry. Chandler outplaying his archetype might just give the Suns the edge they need in this matchup. It nearly looks as if he is better shooting going right than left, very rare for a right handed shooter. I inferred the same thing. But Phoenix was able to get it done down low, scoring 14 of their 23 points in the paint. They were not lucky. I don’t feel like I disrespected them. “Hey, it’s all for headlines”.

The Clippers’ much improved bench was on full display against the Phoenix Suns at critical times. “Festus was great for us tonight”.

As a Clippers fan, I find it hard to explain what happened next. We got back in the game, and it was a battle after that.