Rowan Kavner
CHICAGO – Halfway through the third quarter, the only Clippers’ player with more than five points was gone.
Blake Griffin posted 18 points and 11 rebounds while the rest of the Clippers’ offense couldn’t get going, but a foul on a swat attempt which found nothing but Taj Gibson’s face turned into a flagrant-2, and Griffin’s night was over with six minutes left in the third quarter.
“He got me up in the air on a pump fake,” Griffin said. “I thought he was going up so I tried to swipe across the ball. Obviously, I missed.”
It was a disappointing series of events for Griffin. Immediately after the foul, Griffin went to help Gibson back up and apologize.
“I wasn’t trying to hit him in the face,” Griffin said. “There wasn’t intent to hurt or intent to really hit him. I was trying to get the ball and he pump-faked me.”
There were no hard feelings on Gibson’s part, either, after the play. Gibson didn’t see the replay until after the game, but in the moment, he said he was surprised the foul got upgraded.
“Man, I’m old school,” Gibson said. “It’s basketball. You’re going to get hit. First thing as soon as it happened, he reached down to make sure I was OK.
“I’ve known Blake for a long time. Great guy. Even after he got ejected, he was making sure I was OK. It’s no big thing. It’s basketball. But that’s how our league is now, so you have to respect the referee.”
Despite missing a quarter and a half, Griffin still finished with six more points than any other Clippers player, going 7-of-14 from the floor. Head coach Doc Rivers said Griffin was playing great, and it was even more important in Rivers’ opinion that Griffin was playing tough and physically, pulling down 11 rebounds.
“Obviously, he wasn’t trying to commit a flagrant foul,” Rivers said. “He was trying to swing to catch him, but when you wind up like that like we used to do—and not to hurt a guy, you wind up to try to knock the ball over his head—if you miss and hit a guy, it’s an automatic flagrant these days, and that’s just the way it is. At the end of the day, we’re trying to protect players, so I guess you just have to live with it.”
His loss could’ve meant the end of the Clippers’ will. But despite the struggles for three quarters and having to play without Griffin for most of the second half, the Clippers found a way to respond.
The Clippers trailed, 57-43, when Griffin went out. They got that lead to 10 at the end of the third quarter and by the 7:19 mark in the fourth, the game was tied following a medley of 3-pointers, all provided by the Clippers’ reserves.
When the Bulls pushed the lead back up to seven, Chris Paul responded with two straight 3-pointers to put the Clippers back within striking distance, despite ultimately falling by two points.
“You have to find a way,” Paul said. “Blake is our guy. Once he goes down, other guys stepped up and we still had an opportunity.”
Griffin said he hated not being out there to make a difference at the end, and that would’ve been the case even if he didn’t have it going in the first half. He said it’s a positive, however, to see what the Clippers’ bench was able to put together in the fourth quarter.
“We just have a lot of guys on that unit that can make plays,” Griffin said.