It started with the very first play of the game.
Chris Paul lobbed the ball to a soaring Blake Griffin, and after just eight seconds had passed Friday night, the Los Angeles Clippers had their first dunk and had set the tone. They were going to be strong, aggressive and were not going to show any mercy.
“We were soft, on our heels,” Cavaliers coach Byron Scott said afterward. “And I thought the first play was kind of indicative of the whole game.”
Predictably, the Cavaliers were overpowered by the Clippers, 105-89 at The Q in front of a sellout crowd of 20,562. The Cavaliers were dominated in the paint, outscored 50-28, and outmatched by big men and guards alike as the Clippers recorded 11 dunks and Paul tallied 15 assists.
It came without point guard Kyrie Irving, who sat his third game with a sore right knee. Not that anyone would use that as an excuse.
“The thing with any team when you lose your best player, you can survive that for three or four games,” Scott said. “Just like Andy [Varejao] earlier in the season. But you can’t survive for 10, 11, 12 or whatever the case may be.
“I don’t know if that’s necessarily what caught up to us. I just thought the Clippers were a much better basketball team than we were tonight. Much more physical, much more aggressive than we were tonight.”
Los Angeles built a 14-point lead in the second quarter, then held off any Cavaliers attempts at a comeback. The gap closed to 62-59 with 5:48 left in the third quarter — thanks to a Alonzo Gee dunk off a Dion Waiters lob — but the home team could never get over the hump.
“We were trying to react to everything instead of being the aggressor,” Scott said. “When we did get [aggressive] we were able to get back into the game. But then when we did it’s almost like we said, ‘OK, we’re here,’ and then they were able to turn it up a notch.”
The Clippers did it in demoralizing ways. Soon after the lead fell to three points, Paul found Griffin for another alley-oop, and then Griffin slammed home a driving dunk of his own that pushed the lead out to 69-59.
It was a somewhat surprising performance from the Cavaliers (20-39), given their penchant for toppling some of the top teams in the league.
“We usually do get up for big games like this,” said forward Tristan Thompson (15 points and 12 rebounds). “This is a playoff team, a team trying to make a run for the championship. But, it happens.”
The Clippers not only dunked their way to domination, but sixth man Jamal Crawford deliverd 24 points on 8-for-14 shooting. One 3-pointer banked off the glass at the shot-clock buzzer and seemed to be indicative of the night.
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