Clippers Countdown 2013-14 No. 9: Dominance over Eastern Beasts

The NBA season returns on Oct. 28 to save us from our basketball-less misery. In honor of that happy fact, and the mojo developing in #ClipperNation after a franchise-best 57 wins, we at LA Sports Hub are counting down our top 10 favorite games/moments from the 2013-14 season one week at a time…

The countdown moves along from the Los Angeles Clippers’ home-opener dismantling of Golden State. We now come to a pair of absolute blowouts against one of the hardest regular season teams to play in the NBA. Los Angeles won the two meetings between playoffs regulars by a whopping 28-point average. Few teams give a better effort night in and night out than Tom Thibodeau’s Chicago Bulls.

The Clips just happened to catch Chicago on its worst night of the season the first time around. Derrick Rose had just gone down with his second season-ending knee injury after only an 11-game comeback. His deflated teammates never really had a chance.

Nov 24, 2013; Los Angeles, CA, USA; Los Angeles Clippers shooting guard

(4) takes a shot during the first half of the game against the Chicago Bulls at Staples Center. Clippers won 121-82. Mandatory Credit: Jayne Kamin-Oncea-USA TODAY Sports

Chris Paul paced a jelling Clippers roster with 16 points and a season-high tying 17 assists. The game before he had a 13-game streak of double-digit assists to open the season snapped by Sacramento. But it was the newcomers who shouldered the scoring burden in a 121-82 whitewashing. Jared Dudley and J.J. Redick combined to shoot 16-of-21 for 40 points in 47 total minutes. Both players were on the bench in warmups by late in the third quarter.

Not since the Buffalo Braves days of the 1970s had the Clippers franchise come close to laying down such a beating, registering a pair of 37-point wins.

Nearly matching every point in the margin of victory with a year living on Earth, then-37-year-old Antawn Jamison contributed 11 points in his Clippers debut.

With local poster child/icon/heartbeat of the city Rose headed for surgery, Chicago came out completely flat. Los Angeles pushed its lead to as many as 10 in the first quarter. Indicative of how the night would go, four minutes into the game Dudley completed an ill-advised no look backwards pass that went through DeAndre Jordan‘s legs and into Redick’s waiting hands to drain a three-pointer.

Redick and Dudley, acquired for their shared ability to put the ball in the bucket from very far away, did just that. The two combined for 14 first-quarter points and finished the first half with 29 of the team’s 65 while Chicago struggled to find scoring sources without its leader.

"“We jumped on them so quickly that I thought it had to have had a mental effect,” Clippers coach Doc Rivers said. “You don’t lose a D. Rose. … We came out and played unbelievable, and I just thought the mental part of that had to be difficult. Very few teams could have fought through that.”"

The Clippers dominated just about every phase of the game, including the bench. With both teams’ second units on in the fourth quarter, Chicago managed just nine points to the Clippers’ 25. Led by Darren Collison‘s 14 points, the reserves totaled 48 points while the Bulls’ starters tallied 67.

The second meeting fell during Paul’s 18-game absence, meaning both teams were devoid of their superstar point guard. Since the late November meeting, Los Angeles ran off a 19-10 record while Chicago stuttered to an even 15-15. The result would definitively prove which roster was more disaster-proof.

, who posted a “quiet” 15-and-12 in the first meeting, wore his MVP hat better than

. The fourth-year pro flirted with a triple-double, tallying 26 points, 13 rebounds and seven assists in a 112-95 drubbing. (Noah came equally close to a triple-double with 12-13-7, but his lack of scoring acumen was on fully display.) It was the team’s seventh win in 10 games without Paul, and Hero Griffin raised his average in those games to 24.9 ppg.

Adding new dimensions to his game in Paul’s absence led Griffin to finish third in MVP voting last season. In a testament to his expanded range, Griffin knocked down three of five shots outside 15 feet. “(I want to be) a leader for us, knocking down shots and being able to mix up my game, going inside when I felt the need to and going outside when I needed to,” Griffin said.

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While Carlos Boozer‘s 22 points paced Chicago, only three of his teammates reached double figures. Los Angeles’ entire starting lineup plus Jamal Crawford got there. As a team, the Clips hit 13 of 21 three-pointers, 10 of 14 in the first half. It would be the team’s best shooting night from distance of the season based on percentage.  “They were open, the right guy was taking them, all of our 3-point shooters,” Rivers said. “They made them, and that opened it up for Blake.”

Indeed, despite Chicago’s vaunted defensive reputation, Griffin scored 20 points within five feet of the basket. The effort nearly doubled his 11 points per game from that distance.