Rowan Kavner
LOS ANGELES - It was the kind of night where Blake Griffin, after scoring a season-high 40 points, totaling nearly half his team’s scoring output, said he needs to look at himself and see what he can do better.
Even on a night he carried the Clippers as much as he could, there couldn’t be any enjoying a 40-point, 12-rebound performance on 18-of-23 shooting, as his team fell Wednesday night to the Jazz.
“The whole point is to do that to help your team win,” Griffin said. “Especially the way we lost, it doesn’t really do any good.”
Griffin did just about everything he could. He hit 10-footers and 16-footers. He threw down dunks. He hit hook shots in the lane. He nailed the elbow jumper, and, when he wanted, used his ball-handling to get to the rim. He even went successfully through the legs with one arm at one point to do so.
He finished with more points than he’s had since December 2014, and he did it while shooting a season-best 78.3 percent, reaching the 40-point mark for the seventh time in his career.
Griffin showcased everything about his game he possibly could, and it still wasn’t enough. He combined with Chris Paul to shoot 28-for-38, while the rest of the Clippers went 10-for-37.
“You never look at it, like, ‘Oh, these two guys got it going,” Griffin said. “Even when you don’t have a good night offensively, you can still do more than that. You can have a larger effect on the game.
“Doc (Rivers) said it in the locker room, look at yourself first. That’s what we’ve got to do, look at ourselves and what we can each individually do to make this team better.”
Griffin said the Clippers know they should be better than what they’re showing, which adds to the frustration. What also adds to it is the unknown of what needs to be done to turn things around. Griffin and the Clippers were hopeful the win in Denver would help them turn the corner.
He acknowledged getting in late last night and playing on the second game of a back-to-back might show some fatigue, but Griffin said at home the Clippers should take care of business with a core group of players who’ve been together for years.
“We’ve just need to stay together, not get too down on ourselves,” Griffin said. “But we’ve got to change something. Something’s got to change.”
Jamal Crawford said both Griffin and Paul do a good job feeling out what the team needs every night. On Wednesday, it was scoring.
“They saw that nobody really had it going, so they stepped up,” Crawford said. “Blake was amazing. Chris was amazing in spurts as well. He really got it going late. We are at our best when we have a balanced attack and tonight, and we didn’t do that. We didn’t do our job.”
Crawford said as a group, there’s no rhythm. There’s the ups of Tuesday and the lows of Wednesday, and the inconsistencies go from game to game and even quarter to quarter.
“We have to figure it out,” Crawford said.
Even with all Griffin and Paul did, Paul said the two of them still need to put guys in better positions to score. Paul said he needs to play better and harder, particularly on the defensive end. Both Paul and Griffin said everyone’s trying to do what they can individually for the greater good.
“But we’ve got to play together,” Paul said. “This isn’t golf. This isn’t tennis. You can’t do it alone. You need everybody.”