LOS ANGELES-The best way to look at the Los Angeles Clippers’ 101-96 win against the Detroit Pistons on Saturday at Staples Center, is to look at the results of the team’s wins and losses thus far into the 2015-2016 NBA season. So far, it’s been a Jekyll & Hyde transformation for the Clippers.
Winning two of their last six games, including the nail-biting win against the Pistons, have given them that look. Ten games into the season, it’s been hit or miss with the Clippers. If not for Jamal Crawford dropping 37 points on the Pistons, the Clippers would be batting .500 right about now.
That’s not the expectations this squad had coming into this season. It certainly cannot be the kind of production head coach Doc Rivers wanted from his team. But it’s early, and the Clippers have 72 more games during the regular season to get it right. The Clippers are a championship-contending team. At least they’re expected to be.
But at the moment, Rivers’ team is playing like they are still trying to figure it all out, going through lineup changes, new faces and trying to get some synergy to flow in their offense. With point guard Chris Paul out of the gametime lineup, the Clippers’ offense looked stagnant and out sync for the first two quarters against the Pistons.
Reggie Jackson and his Detroit mates had a lot to do with the Clippers being off-key, coming out of the gate doing their best Golden State Warriors impression, raining three-point shots from all over the arc. The up and down swing mood of the Clippers was no more evident than against the Pistons.
Down big in the first half, the Clippers, behind the scoring binge Crawford and Blake Griffin went on, got it together when it mattered. Poor defensive effort, a lack of rebounding and off-rhythm field goal shooting put the Clippers in a 17-point hole at one point in the game. The boos started to fall. It’s a good thing the game is played in four quarters instead of two.
It’s also a good thing the Clippers have Crawford and Griffin. Crawford and Griffin helped the Clippers pull up their bootstraps to win this home game. Crawford went deep into his bag of tricks to score 37 points, grab six rebounds and dish off eight assists. It was probably one of Crawford’s best showing in a Clippers uniform.
As for Griffin, the guy keeps making plays like the MVP candidate he’s been the last two seasons. Griffin came close to putting up a triple double, scoring 34 points to go along with his nine rebounds and eight assists. Just another dominating performance. For added measure, the Clippers also got 16 rebounds from DeAndre Jordan, which offset Detroit’s Andre Drummond’s monster game of 18 points and 19 rebounds.
The Clippers, with Steph Curry and the Warriors bouncing into town on Thursday, won this game by closing out the final two quarters playing stout defense and getting timely shooting from Crawford and Griffin. The Clippers held the Pistons to just 16 points in the fourth quarter to eke out their sixth win of the season.
Mr. Hyde came to play in quarters one and two. For the Clippers’ sake, the good of Dr. Jekyll showed up in time.
Dennis has covered and written about politics, crime, race, sports, and entertainment. Dennis currently covers the NFL, MLB, NBA, NCAA, and Olympic sports. Dennis is the editor of News4usonline.com and serves as the publisher of the Compton Bulletin newspaper. He earned a journalism degree from Howard University. Email Dennis at dfreeman@news4usonline.com
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