Blake Griffin Looks Impressive But Clippers Still Lose

Added on Oct 28, 2010 by Jason Kearney in

NBA

The Los Angeles Clippers opened their season on Wednesday night in a game that featured the regular season NBA debut of 2009 top draft pick Blake Griffin. Griffin broke his left kneecap in the final preseason game last year and missed the entire season. His long awaited debut was impressive–20 points, 14 rebounds. Despite his solid performance, the order of the NBA universe remains intact–the Clippers lost, this time to the Portland Trailblazers 98-88.

Griffin was low key about his performance:

“In some areas I did well, but there’s a lot of room for improvement. It was a sigh of relief that I made it back, but I don’t want to make this game bigger than it is. It is a first game, not a live or die situation.”

He was critical about his play on the defensive end:

“I wasn’t happy at all with how I blocked out on the defensive glass. They had 21 offensive rebounds and I probably gave up six of them, which is ridiculous. That should never happen.”

His performance drew rave reviews from a couple of Blazers’ players including point guard Andre Miller:

“He’s a guy that jumps all over the place and he’s quick, so he’s definitely going to be a big body there to mess around with for some years to come.”

and Marcus Camby:

“He’s a stud, man. He’s going to be the face of that franchise for years to come.”

The Clippers led going into the fourth quarter, but the Blazers clamped down on defense and took over the game. Clippers’ coach Vinnie Del Negro said the team didn’t react well to the Blazers’ aggressive zone:

“Their zone bothered us. We got very stagnant. I thought we settled for too much. It’s a good learning experience. We just got to learn how to win the fourth quarter.”

Camby admitted that Portland’s defense threw off the Clippers:

“It was our defense. We changed it up a little bit and switched from man to a zone, and I think that kind of slowed them down a little and made them a little hesitant. Then we were able to get some stops.”

LA focused their effort on stopping Brandon Roy in the second half, and Camby was pleased that the deep and versatile Blazers made them pay the price:

“They were sending multiple guys at Brandon in the second half, and it’s hard to play one-on-three. But we really didn’t need him that much in the second half. Our two best players are LaMarcus and Brandon, and when one doesn’t have it going in the first half, like LaMarcus, Brandon led us in the first half. In the second half, Brandon didn’t play well and LaMarcus did. So it’s good to have that balance.”

Portland improved to 2-0 this season, but now embarks on a tough three game road trip with stops in Chicago, Milwaukee and New York. The Clippers will look for their first win of the season on the road at Golden State on Thursday night.