Eleven days ago, the Clippers
turned the Verizon Center in Washington into their playground.
They had
rolled in to commence a 10-day, six-game trip and moved on after a no-sweat,
26-point demolition of the Wizards,
their largest win in the nation's capital.
On Wednesday, the Clippers
were home, seemingly safe and sound, with their first game back in their
quarters against those same lowly Wizards.
Only those woebegone Wizards
made the Clippers look jet-lagged and heavy-legged, turning what was expected to
be an L.A. blowout into a grinder, which the Clippers won by a deceiving score
of 102-84, before 19,135 at Staples
Center.
It wasn't that easy.
The teams exchanged leads most of
the night until the Clippers managed an eight-point advantage going into the
fourth quarter off the back off a momentum-shifting alley-oop dunk by Blake
Griffin.
In the final quarter, the Clippers' offense, sparked by that
slam, continued to wake up while the Wizards, who were playing for the second
consecutive night, started to wear down.
A Randy Foye
three-point shot with 6 minutes 57 seconds left put the Clippers ahead by
12.
A Chris Paul
three-pointer with 3:52 left put them ahead by 14.
A DeAndre
Jordan alley-oop dunk with 3:00 left put them ahead by 18.
Clippers
fans started filing out after that, resting easy after a nerve-racking
night.
Griffin had a game-high 23 points and 15 rebounds and Caron Butler lit
up his former team with 21 points, making five of the Clippers' game-swinging 11
three-point shots.
Paul struggled shooting but had 16 points and nine
assists. Jordan added 11 points and nine rebounds.
The Clippers (18-9)
escaped a pride-swallowing loss, which would have marked the team's first set of
consecutive losses since last season and ended a six-game winning streak against
the Wizards.
"I think everybody was getting used to being back home and
the time change and all that," Griffin said. "But we've got to make sure we
don't let that happen in the future because we'll have more road trips like
that."
To be sure, the Wizards (7-23) came in with hot hands, having won
two consecutive road games by at least 15 points, something the franchise had
never done before. One of those wins was a Valentine's
Day massacre of Portland in which Washington scored a season-high 124
points.
That incendiary offense stayed sizzling for three quarters
against the Clippers, who, to be sure, were minus a key cog (guard Chauncey
Billups, out with a season-ending injury) from their last
meeting.
"Offensively, I thought we couldn't get in any kind of a rhythm
in the first half," Clippers Coach Vinny Del
Negro said.
But they did have a new cog in this one: forward Kenyon
Martin, who had four points and three rebounds as the crowd cheered him on
during his 23-minute home debut.
Still, the Clippers essentially slouched
into the game — unlike the Wizards, who looked hungry and full of vim and vigor
behind the up-tempo pace set by speedy guard John Wall,
who kept the score near even and nearly posted a double-double (nine points,
eight assists) by halftime.
Wall finished with 18 points, 12 assists and
six rebounds. The Wizards also had 18 points from center JaVale
McGee.
For the Clippers, it's on to a TNT game in Portland, which
will be playing the third game of a back-to-back-to-back.
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