LA Clippers Hold Off Spurs At Staples Center In Dominant Fashion

No matter how you slice it, the LA Clippers completely owned the Spurs on Thursday night.

Before things got interesting on the court between the Spurs and Clippers, the second half of the season just wouldn’t have felt right if something didn’t happen involving Blake Griffin.

Since Christmas, there’s been plenty of room to argue that the team is actually better across the board when he’s not with them.

The LA Clippers failed to struggle in January and, as it stands right now, have the mentality that they will be able to hold their own in a playoff series — especially any of the three teams above them in the Western Conference standings.

Without Griffin, the team has resorted to using a more balanced approach on defense, with the offensive tempo easily picking up whenever’s necessary.

To add to that, Chris Paul and J.J. Redick have been lights out for Los Angeles, who will need them to step up to possibly even greater heights for this team to make a deep playoff run that matters.

Despite all of the hype going into the game, though, the Clippers posted this picture on Twitter of Blake Griffin greeting the team staffer that he punched in the face:

Griffin seems to have learned his lesson, but that doesn’t mean that the organization has to side with or keep him around much longer.

In fact, since he wasn’t dealt before the season’s trade deadline, it’s not safe to rule out them giving him to another team if a good enough trade scenario arises.

From the floor, Chris Paul led the way with 28 points and 12 assists in just under 40 minutes.

While the Clippers held off the Spurs early, keeping San Antonio to just 34 points in the first half — it’s lowest in any half this season — they found themselves on the verge of giving it away in the fourth quarter.

Thankfully, the final frame was nice to Paul, who dropped 18 of his 28 in the quarter.

Jamal Crawford and J.J. Redick also had big nights, with 19 and 17 points, respectively.

If the 19-point win over the second-best team in all of the NBA wasn’t enough of a statement to start the second half, ESPN laid out a pretty clear picture that the team is statistically better without Blake Griffin:

One of the biggest ways in which the Clippers were able to win big against San Antonio was the fact that they figured out how to beat the Spurs at their own game — endurance.

Normally, the Spurs haven’t had problems when matching their bench guys against starting lineups of other teams; but with the Clippers, something is clearly different.

For San Antonio, Kyle Anderson, Tony Parker, and Danny Green all played for 28 minutes of game time — Tim Duncan and LaMarcus Aldridge also played for 20 and 25 minutes, respectively.

To counter that, Chris Paul and DeAndre Jordan each shared the floor for 37 minutes, while J.J. Redick, Wesley Johnson, and Jamal Crawford also logged at least 30 minutes.

Because of the enduring efforts of Chris Paul and company, the Spurs weren’t able to find the final answer in the fourth quarter despite having the momentum coming into the last part of the game.

Once Los Angeles saw what was working, they were able to extend the lead again, getting them the eventual double-digit win over one of the best teams in basketball.

The final question for the Clippers, however, remains to be whether or not they can continue putting up these kind of numbers and logging these kind of minutes from their starters in a single or multiple playoff series.

Nonetheless, Los Angeles will be more than ready for their big game tomorrow when they host the Golden State Warriors.

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Should they win that game as well, the rest of the league must prepare for this team to go above and beyond in the second half of the season.