Mavs Lose To Clippers
LOS ANGELES — Mark Cuban says there is no rivalry between the Dallas Mavericks and Los Angeles Clippers.
“You can change the owner, you can change the players, but the Clippers are who they’ve been for the past 30 years,” the Mavericks owner said Thursday before the teams met at Staples Center.
Dallas forward Dirk Nowitzki politely disagreed.
“They’re a little better than when I first came into the league,” Nowitzki said with a grin. “They’re a lot better.”
Forward Blake Griffin scored 26 points and grabbed 10 rebounds, and the Clippers rolled to a 104-88 victory over the short-handed Mavericks on Thursday night.
An eight-point halftime lead ballooned into a double-digit advantage in the second half for Los Angeles, and Dallas failed to recover.
“We just calmed down, trusted our offense, executed and got stops defensively, which led to easy baskets on the offensive end,” said Griffin, who made 11 of 17 shots from the floor in only 27 minutes.
The Clippers’ defense also contributed to the outcome, holding the Mavericks to 36.1 percent shooting to 43.7 percent for Los Angeles.
“We played better defense, number one,” Clippers coach Doc Rivers
said. “Number two, I thought we walked the ball up the floor for most of the first half. The first unit was much better the second time they came on the floor in the last six minutes of the first half.
“In the second half, both units played at pace instead of walking up the floor after both makes and misses, which was not who we are.”
Guard Jamal Crawford added 15 points off the bench as the Clippers (2-0) prevailed in their home opener. Guards Austin Rivers and J.J. Reddick scored 14 and 12 points, respectively.
Guard John Jenkins had 17 points and Nowitzki 16 to lead the Mavericks (1-1).
Dallas played without guard Deron Williams and forward Wesley Matthews. Williams sustained a left knee contusion Wednesday in a 111-95 blowout of the Phoenix Suns, while Matthews, who scored nine points in the rout, was held out for precautionary reasons. Matthews had surgery on a torn left Achilles tendon last March, and club officials refuse to risk playing him in back-to-back games this early in the season.
Dallas already was without forward Chandler Parsons (right knee surgery) and center JaVale McGee (left tibial stress fracture).
“It was a tough matchup, but we kept battling,” said Nowitzki, who also had seven rebounds. “We didn’t shoot the ball particularly well. That was tough, but I thought we hung in there for the first half.”
The Clippers also were playing for the second night in a row, coming off a 111-104 win over the Kings in Sacramento on Wednesday night.
Both teams were sluggish offensively in the first half, but the Clippers got the better of it. After a Nowitzki jumper pulled Dallas to within 34-32, Los Angeles went on a 9-0 run for a 43-32 advantage on reverse layup by point guard Chris Paul with 3:10 left in the second quarter.
Clippers center DeAndre Jordan, who reneged on a verbal agreement with the Mavericks this summer before remaining with Los Angeles, and Nowitzki had a brief altercation with 1:41 left in the second quarter after Nowitzki fouled Jordan under the Clippers’ basket. Players from both teams began jawing at each other before technicals were issued to Jordan, Griffin and Mavericks guard Raymond Felton.
Jordan finished with 15 rebounds, four blocks and six points in 26 minutes.
The Mavericks began their hack-a-Jordan strategy from that point on, fouling Jordan on each of the Clippers’ next three possessions. Jordan missed five of six attempts, but the Clippers managed to take a 51-43 lead at the half.
Los Angeles outscored Dallas 34-25 in the third, capped by Rivers’ 3-point basket to end the quarter, for an 85-68 cushion.
