Tag: Blake Griffin

Griffin vows to play in Game 1 despite injury

Los Angeles Clippers forward Blake Griffin vows he will play in Game 1 Tuesday night despite a sprained left knee that his coach Vinny Del Negro said might need more treatment before he is cleared to play.

Griffin sustained a sprained left knee in Game 6 of the Clippers’ seven-game series victory over Memphis. The day of rest after that series ended has convinced him he will be ready for Tuesday’s game, saying there is “no doubt” about his availability.

Following a shootaround Monday afternoon at the ATT Center, Griffin said he’s at about 75 or 80 percent of peak condition.

”Hopefully more than that, but realistically, probably about that,” Griffin said. ”But my knee hasn’t gotten worse. That’s the encouraging thing. It just needs time, and we haven’t had much of it.”

Del Negro said a final decision won’t be made on Griffin’s Game 1 availability until after the Clippers’ Tuesday morning shootaround. 

”I don’t know yet,” Del Negro said. ”I’ll make that decision tomorrow after shootaround, after I talk to the trainer.”

But Griffin said he feels much better after a day of rest after the grueling series against the Grizzlies.

“That series was tough, it was a slugfest. You felt like you were just out there hitting people and hoping you wouldn’t get a foul called,” Griffin said. “But this is kind of a day and a half of rest we get, maybe a little more than that. It should be good for us.”

Crawford repents, just in time for Duncan

Column by Buck Harvey

I saw Joey Crawford off the court a few years ago, after the incident, and I told him he looked like he’d stayed in shape.

“I run,” he said with a smile, and then he scooted sideways across the room like a crab. That’s how NBA officials always seem to move.

Crawford’s sense of humor is one reason the media has always enjoyed him. Another is that he’s been a top-five ref who runs a fast game.

He added another layer to that last week. Crawford didn’t simply admit he was wrong in 2007. He went beyond that, calling it one of his biggest regrets, and that might come into play soon when Crawford shows up to work a Spurs game.

Tim Duncan, after all, might finally see Crawford as just another ref running like a crab.

Crawford isn’t just another ref, of course. He’s worked a record number of postseason games, and he’s done so with control that few of his peers have. The surprise Saturday is that he wasn’t assigned Game 7 between the Lakers and Nuggets.

But there’s been a sense the past few years that Crawford came with baggage when he worked a Spurs game. His actions in 2007 created that, and his suspension did little to ease suspicions.

Who knows? Maybe that made Crawford even angrier?

He’s been assigned five Spurs playoff games since 2007, and Duncan has done well in many of them. He finished with 29 points and 17 rebounds to eliminate Shaquille O’Neal and the Suns in 2008, for example.

Still, the Spurs also lost the other four with him, and his non-call in 2008 against the Lakers added to the mistrust. When Derek Fisher came down on Brent Barry in Game 4 of the Western Conference finals, wouldn’t that have been a foul with others?

Maybe, maybe not. But since Crawford was the closest, there were reasons to wonder.

But there are also reasons to wonder if this is mostly paranoia, because of what Crawford said in the New York Times last week. Asked if he had any regrets, the Times reported he didn’t hesitate.

Crawford offered two. One was the IRS investigation into league officials pocketing first-class fare money. The second was Duncan.

“The Duncan thing probably changed my life,” Crawford said. “It was just — you come to the realization that maybe the way you’ve been doing things is not the proper way and you have to regroup, not only on the court but off the court.”

That’s strong, and it’s this self-evaluation that likely saved his career. Jake O’Donnell, an official who Crawford called “a legend” in the same Times article, was previously pulled down by a similar spat with Clyde Drexler.

As for what had built up between Crawford and Duncan: There were signs of it in 2006, too, during the Spurs-Mavericks series.

The Spurs have winced since when they’ve seen Crawford show to work one of their games. And asked how long that took to go away, one staffer said Saturday with a touch of humor, “Who says it’s gone away?”

One truth about officials and teams, these things run deep. The Clippers, for example, aren’t going to forget a mediocre ref named Marc Davis; he called a technical foul Friday on Reggie Evans for something as harmless as Duncan once clapping on the bench.

Evans had dared to high-five Blake Griffin.

If Crawford had done the same to the Spurs, all wounds would be open today. But he hasn’t. Time has passed, and he didn’t work the Memphis series last season. He never saw the Jazz this spring, and last week he announced 2007 “changed my life.”

That doesn’t mean Crawford won’t miss a call. But everything he said suggests it will be professional, not personal.

And for the one that needed to hear that the most, Duncan should feel free now. He can complain to Crawford as he would to anyone.

bharvey@express-news.net
Twitter: @Buck_SA

SPURS VS. CLIPPERS OR GRIZZLIES

Game 1: @Spurs, Tuesday, 8:30 p.m., TNT

Game 2: @Spurs, Thursday, 8:30 p.m., ESPN

Game 3: @Clippers or Grizzlies, Saturday, 2:30 pm., ABC

Game 4: @Clippers or Grizzlies, Sunday, 9:30 p.m. or 7 p.m., TNT

*Game 5: @Spurs, May 22 (Tuesday), TNT

*Game 6: @Clippers or Grizzlies, May 24 (Thursday), ESPN

*Game 7: @Spurs, May 27 (Sunday), TNT

* if necessary

Spurs finally find out just what they’re up against

By Jeff McDonald

The Spurs arrived at their practice facility Sunday afternoon — for their third workout in six days with no game — to find they had drawn the opponent they had most desired in the Western Conference semifinals.

Somebody. Anybody.

“You can’t prepare for nobody,” guard Manu Ginobili said.

As far as the Spurs were concerned, the Los Angeles Clippers became their next somebody with a gritty Game 7 victory in Memphis, which finally cemented a second-round opponent beginning Tuesday at the ATT Center.

When the top-seeded Spurs hit the floor for the first time since finishing off Utah last Monday, Chris Paul and the Clippers — and not Zach Randolph and the Grizzlies — will be the team awaiting them.

For the Spurs, who had been going stir crazy scrimmaging each other in their own practice gym, the “who” is less important than the “finally.”

“It drives you a little crazy preparing for two teams at once,” Spurs coach Gregg Popovich said. “One day, you think somebody’s going to win, then it changes. It went back and forth. At least now we know who we’re playing.”

In a well-coined phrase, made for T-Shirts: It’s Lob City.

In Paul and Blake Griffin, the KIA-hopping dunk-machine, the fifth-seeded Clippers come with more star power — and, perhaps, more firepower — than did the Jazz.

Widely considered the NBA’s premier point guard, the 27-year-old Paul averaged 20.4 points and 7.1 assists in the Memphis series. By force of will, he lifted the Clippers past a team that at times seemed vastly superior.

The Spurs are familiar with this playoff version of Paul. Then with New Orleans, he pushed the Spurs to seven games in the 2008 conference finals.

“He’s one of those players, you know he’s not going to give up,” Ginobili said.

Popovich described Paul in terms even more glowing: “He’s a future Hall of Famer.”

The presence of an almost-certain lock for Springfield is one thing that separates the Spurs’ next opponent from its last.

Another difference between the Clippers and Jazz: The Clippers have a few players who can shoot from outside 8 feet.

Case in point is Mo Williams, the reserve guard who torched the Spurs for 33 points — and made 7 of 9 3-pointers — in a 120-108 Clippers victory at the ATT Center in March.

“They’re very different,” said Spurs point guard Tony Parker, who averaged a team-best 21 points in the first round. “They’re more transition, fast breaks, lobs.

“Utah, everything was in the paint. They didn’t have a lot of shooters. The Clippers have some good shooters, so it’s a lot different.”

The Spurs’ strategy in the Utah series was to leave the Jazz shooters alone to clank all but 20 percent of their 3-point tries and use extra defenders to double-team the post.

The Clippers’ abundance of 3-point threats — which includes guard Randy Foye and recently acquired wing Nick Young — might make it more difficult for the Spurs to get away with that approach.

“You can’t help as much as we did against the Jazz,” Ginobili said.

The Spurs, meanwhile, will have to hope an eight-day layoff between series doesn’t rust over the well-oiled machine that has produced 14 consecutive victories.

They will approach the Clippers with a steady diet of Parker pick-and-rolls, lockstep team defense and slick offensive execution that got them this far this fast.

Or, as former Spurs great David Robinson framed the matchup on his Twitter feed Sunday afternoon: “Lob City vs. Fundamental City.”

After an extended, nerve-rattling break, the citizens of Fundamental City are just happy to have another game to play and another opponent to scout.

“The uncertainty is not always good,” Ginobili said. “At this point of the season, you want to know what you’re going to face.”

At long last, at least, the Spurs know.

jmcdonald@express-news.net
Twitter: @JMcDonald_SAEN

SPURS VS. CLIPPERS
(Best-of-seven series)

Game 1: Tuesday, @Spurs, 8:30 p.m., TNT

Game 2: Thursday, @Spurs, 8:30 p.m., ESPN

Game 3: Saturday, @Clippers, 2:30 p.m., ABC

Game 4: Sunday, @Clippers, 9:30 p.m., TNT

* Game 5: May 22, @Spurs, TBA, TNT

* Game 6: May 25, @Clippers, TBA, ESPN

* Game 7: May 27, @Spurs, TBA, TNT

* If necessary