Clippers win without injured Griffin

Los Angeles Clippers center DeAndre Jordan, rear, goes to the basket as Utah Jazz guard Elijah Millsap (13) defends during the second quarter of an NBA basketball game Saturday, Dec. 26, 2015, in Salt Lake City.

After scoring thirteen points and adding twelve rebounds and seven assists in a Christmas Day victory over the Los Angeles Lakers, Los Angeles Clippers power forward Blake Griffin had an MRI that revealed a partially torn quad tendon.

Griffin will be re-evaluated in two weeks, and it’s uncertain when he will return to action.

The Los Angeles Clippers may have got a win on Christmas Day against their hometown rival Lakers, but previously they had lost three straight and are still looking to find some consistent form.

Griffin is the Clippers’ leading scorer with 23.2 points per game. This was the second time the Lakers played the Clippers on Christmas, having won 85-75 in 1991 at the Forum with 20 points from A.C. Green and 18 from Scott…. Larry Nance Jr. had 17 points and 11 rebounds, while Jordan Clarkson scored 12 points and D’Angelo Russell finished with 10. The Jazz, who were also shorthanded playing without Rudy Gobert and Derrick Favors, shot 58.3 percent in the first half and 48.6 percent in the game. Utah G Joe Ingles scored a season-high 14 points…. “I feel like anybody who’s at the level I’m trying to be at, if you don’t think that when you’re on the floor, then you’re doing yourself a disservice”. “So, we just have to keep working”.

Los Angeles shot 50 percent (13 of 26) from three-point range. “I was hurting all night, but I still felt like I played well and played a solid all-around game for the minutes that I was in there”.

Utah cut the lead back to two at 79-77 when Trey Burke and Ingles each drained 3-pointers to fuel a 7-0 run to close out the third quarter. The Grizzlies have averaged 103.7 in winning six straight in the series, including all four matchups last season. It’s not going to get any easier, so it was good to get the win. “I was able to take advantage of it”.

Clippers Coach Doc Rivers was not happy with his reserves.

NOTES: Jazz PF Derrick Favors did not play, sitting out with back spasms.

“We don’t need anybody to try to do more, just everybody do their jobs”, Rivers said before the game, “and kind of pitch in, but when one or two guys try to take up the slack you usually mess it up”. “There were too many times where they were getting open 3s because of miscommunication”.

There were no lead changes and the game was tied only once, at 2-2.

The Clippers were without Griffin for 15 games last season, when he missed time with a staph infection in his elbow. That was a 17 percent increase from the 9.3 million for the Cavaliers-Heat game a year ago.