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Blake Griffin finally ready to do it all for Clippers

Sam Amick
USA TODAY Sports
Clippers forward Blake Griffin still throws down impressive jams, like this one against the Warriors in Game 2's 138-98 win Monday.

LOS ANGELES — There was a time when the notion of Blake Griffin being able to do it alone was, well, comical.

His rookie season was evidence of that much. The Los Angeles Clippers star was widely received as one of the most electric talents the NBA had seen in quite some time, a human elevator who would burst through the ceilings of arenas the league over and come down on the heads of defenders whose athletic ability couldn't compare. And ... the Clippers went 32-50 in that 2010-11 campaign, improving a grand total of three games from the season before he took the floor.

They had waited a whole year for this, through the fractured left knee suffered in his first preseason and the surgery that wiped out the debut campaign of the former Oklahoma star. The endless highlights that followed were fun, all those dunks where he just kept rising like a balloon and made the Clippers fans who had such low expectations swoon. But the group — the only thing that matters when it comes to building a champion — was hardly any better with him finally in the fold.

Chris Paul was the one who took this program to the next level when he arrived in Griffin's second season. Paul was the MVP candidate, the relentless competitor with the versatile game that is always a prerequisite to true relevance.

All of which made Monday night so fascinating.

As Paul sat with Griffin at the postgame podium, the team's two MVP-caliber players discussing a 138-98 Game 2 rout of the Golden State Warriors that was as good as bounce-back playoff wins get, the point guard was asked about his teammate who had avoided the foul trouble that plagued him in a Game 1 loss and turned in a dynamic 35-point night.

"Yeah, it looked like he didn't need me," Paul said with a smile.

Some four minutes later, as Paul clearly came to the conclusion that the dozens of media members at their shared news conference were only interested in speaking to Griffin, he left early with his young son. It was a fitting end to this night that was all about his rising co-star.

This isn't a long-term solution, of course. If the Clippers are going to survive these Warriors in the first round, then somehow get past whichever daunting Western Conference foe comes next and eventually win it all, it will take Griffin and Paul and Jamal Crawford and the rest of Doc Rivers' wildly-talented gang. But Griffin, who was limited to 19 minutes in the opener before fouling out but had no fouls in Game 2 while hitting 13 of 17 shots, has officially had the sort of breakthrough that makes these Clippers more dangerous than ever.

It started with all the heavy lifting he did when Paul was out with a shoulder injury in February and March, that 18-game stretch where Griffin and Crawford teamed up to lead the way and the Clippers went an impressive 12-6 without him. But this? This was big.

Griffin's high in the first round loss to the Memphis Grizzlies in 2013 was 21 points, and he averaged 13.2 overall while scoring a combined 13 points in the final two games. He had only reached the 30-point mark in a playoff game once before in 17 postseason games.

As Crawford said Monday night, the mind-blowing part is that he made it look easy.

"He was unreal," Crawford said. "I told him, I said, 'You cruised to 35,' or whatever he had. A playoff game, and he really cruised. It was just like he was playing in the backyard, but that's Blake. He makes the game very easy, and he made it very easy for us tonight."

As Griffin himself would explain, the mental part of his process is coming along quite well. The player who is so often guilty of being a cliché machine had a revealing moment when asked about the support he gets from teammates and coaches, one that bodes so very well for him and the Clippers going forward.

"Whether you believe it or not, every NBA player deals with confidence issues at times," Griffin said. "Before every game, to hear CP, Jamal, (DeAndre Jordan), Matt (Barnes), (Darren Collison), on down the line to our whole coaching staff say, 'Go attack, go score, go do what you do' is a confidence builder. That gets me into the game.

"Even when I'm missing shots and they still say that, sometimes I want to be like, 'Man, you guys do it for a little bit,' (laughs) but that's huge man. It's encouraging. I think it's big for our team."

And he's as big as ever. He hits jumpers now. He makes the right plays. He attacks at the right times. He shows the kind of footwork and poise that simply wasn't there before. The Warriors had better hope big man Andrew Bogut can make a miraculous return from the fractured rib that kept him back in the Bay Area for these first two games, because Griffin — judging by Game 2 — looks fully capable of winning this series on his own.

"I think that was great mental toughness by Blake," Clippers coach Doc Rivers said. "We talk about it all the time: you have no opponent, we throw you the ball, you score. I don't care who's guarding you, just go play. I don't care what they do to you, just go play. And I thought that was his mindset.

"No matter what call is made, no matter how hard a foul is, just keep playing, because you're the best player, and all the other stuff can take away from you. And I thought he was phenomenal."

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