Rowan Kavner
SACRAMENTO – Doc Rivers has always said he’s more concerned with which players finish the game than which players start it.
And finishing games is exactly what Paul Pierce was brought to the Clippers to do.
Pierce scored eight of his 12 points in the fourth quarter, helping put the Clippers (1-0) back on top of the Kings (0-1) after losing a late 15-point lead in a 111-104 win in the regular season opener.
“Paul’s a matchup nightmare,” Rivers said. “If a team’s going to switch like they did tonight, you’re going to have to switch somebody on Paul Pierce and deal with that.”
Dealing with it was a problem for the Kings, particularly when Pierce operated out of the pick-and-roll with Chris Paul, which helped open up many of his looks. Paul said the Clippers forced the Kings to make a choice on which player to guard when they went to the 1-3 pick-and-roll.
Pierce made the Kings pay, bullying his way to points on whichever player stuck with him.
“Yeah, that’s what happened when he cracked my finger, too,” joked Paul, who put up 18 points and 11 assists while dealing with a fractured finger.
Blake Griffin finished with 33 points, eight rebounds and four assists, going 14-of-20 from the floor to lead the way offensively throughout the night. Then, after a 15-point lead for the Clippers early in the fourth quarter turned into a one-point lead for the Kings just four minutes later, it was Pierce there to settle things down for the starting unit.
Next Game: 10/29
Tipoff: 7:30pm PDT
The Kings never led through three quarters, despite several moments where it appeared they might. Every knock at the door was thwarted by the Clippers until late, when a quick start to the fourth quarter suddenly went the other way for the Clippers.
Two straight buckets from Jamal Crawford gave the Clippers their biggest lead of the game to start the fourth quarter, but a barrage of Sacramento 3-pointers allowed the Kings to break through with their first lead of the game.
The Kings finished with 11 3-pointers, none more important than the back-to-back-to-back long range hits from Marco Belinelli, Darren Collison and Omri Casspi in the fourth quarter, which brought the Clippers’ lead down to one. After a bucket from Rudy Gay, the Kings led by a point for the first time all night.
“We opened up their 3-point game there early in the fourth quarter,” Pierce said. “We turned the ball over, they got in transition, found Belinelli for a couple, Collison made one. Got to do a better job of defending the three. Thought we did a great job first half, second half we didn’t do a good enough job.”
But the Clippers weren’t done.
Pierce knocked down a 3-pointer to regain the lead for the Clippers before both teams proceeded to trade off long-range buckets, with J.J. Redick answering a Rudy Gay 3-pointer to give the Clippers a 100-98 lead with 3:55 remaining.
Another Pierce jumper made it 102-100, when the defense, which played a role in most of the Clippers’ first-half success, began to kick in. The Clippers held the Kings to 40 percent shooting and 12 turnovers in the first half, and they got back to what made them successful down the stretch.
Gay missed a jumper, DeMarcus Cousins committed one of his eight turnovers despite 32 points, 13 rebounds and four 3-pointers on the night, and the Clippers made enough stops late to hold off the Kings.
“You’re going to give up leads,” Rivers said. “It’s the NBA. Guys are going to keep playing, and they did. They had to make threes to get back into the game, and they made them. Cousins made five tonight? Four tonight?
“The thing I’ll clean up is our offensive execution with the turnovers. Those are inexcusable. A lot of them were unforced turnovers, and those are the ones we can’t have. It was one of the goals we had coming into the game.”
The Clippers finished with 15 turnovers and just 19 assists, but they also forced 18 Kings turnovers. When the Kings did get into the lane, DeAndre Jordan and Josh Smith were there to clean things up with four blocks apiece.
But both of them got into foul trouble, leading to more minutes down the stretch for Griffin, something Rivers didn’t want to have to resort to.
“Blake’s been great,” Rivers said. “I did what I said I didn’t want to do, and I thought it hurt him – 12 straight minutes because of foul trouble. I thought it hurt him. We got caught because of the foul trouble – DJ and Josh got in foul trouble. I just think when you do that it hurts you down the stretch.”
Still, the Clippers were able to regain the lead for good and hold off Sacramento.
NOTES: Lance Stephenson started at small forward and scored the first points of the season for the Clippers with a 3-pointer … Jordan had eight points and 12 rebounds … J.J. Redick and Jamal Crawford combined for 26 points… The Clippers shot 52.5 percent in the win … Former Clippers Darren Collison and Caron Butler combined for 21 points off the Kings’ bench … The Kings never led by more than one point … Paul and Griffin each played more than 36 minutes in the win … The Clippers return to Los Angeles for the home opener and the second game of a back-to-back against the Mavericks …