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Paul, Griffin Take Over Second Half Of Game 6

Rowan Kavner

LOS ANGELES – On the brink of elimination, after a quiet first half, the Clippers’ dynamic duo made sure their team’s season wouldn’t end Thursday night in San Antonio.

Chris Paul and Blake Griffin combined for 33 points and 11 assists without committing a turnover in the second half alone, putting behind slow starts to put away the Spurs and force a Game 7.

“I thought Blake and Chris took the game over,” said Spurs head coach Gregg Popovich. “We didn’t stop them. They were tremendous.”

It was a tale of two halves for the Clippers’ stars, as the players entered halftime a combined 3-for-15 with 12 points, 10 assists and a turnover. While he did have eight assists, Paul was 0-for-7 from the floor at the time. Somehow, the Clippers still entered the second half tied.

When head coach Doc Rivers looked at the stat sheet, in particular the numbers for Griffin and Paul, he was thinking he could live with both sides being even at halftime.

“You know as competitive as CP is, he was going to come out and play for us,” Rivers said. “I still thought that he was fighting himself, honestly, in the first half. I thought that his shots were afterthoughts.”

That wouldn’t last. Pure dominance followed, as Paul and Griffin combined for 18 of the Clippers’ 25 third-quarter points, much to the chagrin of the Spurs.

“They were great tonight,” Popovich said. “We’ve got to have some people step up and play. We are not going to be able to do it individually the same way as those two guys do. We don’t have that kind of talent.”

Paul missed his first shot of the quarter to start 0-for-8 from the field. Then the switch flipped as his aggression kicked up, hitting six of his next eight shots in the game, while scoring eight of the Clippers’ final 10 points of the third quarter.

“In the second half, he was just on the attack,” Rivers said. “He was more aggressive. It’s amazing because he is a great player, but trying to convince him that he is a great scorer, especially in this series, has been very difficult.”

The third-quarter performances from Paul and Griffin allowed the Clippers to withstand a 17-8 run from the Spurs and take a four-point lead into the fourth quarter, along with all the momentum.

The Clippers would lead the rest of the way after Paul’s 16-foot jumper with 38 seconds left in the third quarter, which gave the Clippers a 74-72 lead. San Antonio, as a team, had as many assists and only three more points than Paul and Griffin in the third quarter.

But the duo wasn’t done.

They’d go on to score 15 points and dish out six assists in the fourth quarter, with Griffin hitting all three of his shot attempts when it mattered most. Griffin finished with 26 points, 12 rebounds, six assists and four blocks, becoming the only player since 1985-86 to do so in a postseason game without committing a turnover.

“We missed shots and made mistakes, but we kept fighting,” Griffin said, “and we kept telling CP to keep shooting the ball.”

He did.

The Clippers started the game 0-for-8 from 3-point range, but Paul didn’t think about that. Paul started with the same mark from the floor, but he didn’t think about that, either.

Paul finished with 19 points, 15 assists, four rebounds and four steals, helping break the game open momentarily in the fourth quarter with a corner 3-pointer, scoring five straight points to give the Clippers an 85-78 lead.

“In the playoffs, (stats) mean nothing,” Paul said. “It’s all if you win or if you lose. It was all about continuing to take the shots and do whatever it takes to win, and we did.”

Griffin helped the Clippers maintain their advantage by hitting the team’s next two shots, preceding J.J. Redick’s gigantic 3-pointer at the top of the key after the Spurs had started to chip into the lead.

When Marco Belinelli hit one of his seven 3-pointers on the night to cut the Clippers’ lead to three points with 1:19 remaining, it was Paul who answered on the other end with another bucket. Every shot made by the Spurs had an answer at the other end, typically from Paul or from Griffin, who’s now recorded five games with at least 20 points, 10 rebounds and five assists this series.

“It seems like the fourth quarter, with the exception of Game 3, it’s almost anybody’s game,” Griffin said. “It’s been a lot of fun to play in.”