Blake Griffin tears down shot clock with dunk before preseason game
If you’re wondering how amped up Blake Griffin is about getting back on the court this season, you need look no further than his performance during the layup lines before the Los Angeles Clippers’ preseason matchup with the Toronto Raptors in Vancouver on Sunday night for evidence that the All-Star power forward is suitably charged up.
Keep your eyes trained on the midpoint between the heads of Prime Ticket play-by-play man Ralph Lawler and color commentator Michael Smith, and wait for Hulk to smash:
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Griffin’s off-the-backboard two-hander literally sent the shot clock crashing down from the top of the basket, requiring the Rogers Arena game operations crew on hand to fix it up before the festivities could get underway:
Here’s another look, from the stands of Rogers Arena:
We suspect the arena crew didn’t enjoy Blake’s bombshell nearly as much as fist-pumping teammate DeAndre Jordan, who got his preseason off to an explosive start on Friday night.
As you might expect, Griffin was somewhat surprised that his standard pregame thunder resulted in parts of the basket raining down, according to Rowan Kavner of Clippers.com:
“That was crazy,” Griffin said. “When we went up for warm-ups, I always do this thing where I jump on the rim. I came down and a screw hit me in the face, so we were looking up at the rim, and I guess Cole [Aldrich] dunked and another screw came out. We just kind of loosened it up.”
The “loosened” basket wasn’t very kind to Blake and his teammates. Griffin scored 14 points on just 5-for-13 shooting on Sunday, and the Clips as a crew managed only a 38 percent mark from the field while committing 25 turnovers leading to 28 Raptors points, as the new-look bench of offseason acquisitions Paul Pierce, Josh Smith and Lance Stephenson alongside incumbents Jamal Crawford and Austin Rivers mostly failed to find consistency and rhythm.
“They’re really struggling because they don’t know how to play with each other yet,” Clippers coach Doc Rivers said after the game, according to Ben Bolch of the Los Angeles Times.
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Toronto wasn’t demonstrably more accurate from the field, shooting just 42.5 percent as a team and missing nine of its 11 3-point tries. But behind a stellar showing from slimmed-down All-Star point guard Kyle Lowry, who scored 26 points on 7-for-10 shooting in 21 1/2 minutes of work, the Raps cruised to a 93-73 win in front of the Canadian faithful.
“He’s been playing like that all camp,” said Toronto’s top free-agent signing, small forward DeMarre Carroll, after the game, according to Eric Koreen of the National Post. “Kyle, he’s an aggressive guard. He’s been … shooting the ball [well] all camp. You can just tell he has a confidence level about himself. That’s good. He’s our point guard. He’s the head of the snake. We need him to have that type of comfort.”
While Lowry looks to keep the good vibes going, the Clippers will jet off to China for a pair of “Global Games” contests against the Charlotte Hornets in Shenzhen and Shanghai. The first game’s slated for Oct. 11, which ought to give the folks at Shenzhen Universiade Sports Center plenty of time to reinforce the basket stanchions and maybe put some extra tape around the shot clock. Y’know, just in case.
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Dan Devine is an editor for Ball Don’t Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter!
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