Clippers: No Blake Griffin, No Problem For DeAndre Jordan

Since last season, the Los Angeles Clippers are 11-5 when Blake Griffin sits. DeAndre Jordan‘s emergence in Griffin’s absence is the reason they keep winning without Griffin.

When the basketball world found out on the day after Christmas that the Los Angeles Clippers would be without Blake Griffin for two weeks due to a partially torn quadriceps tendon, most assumed that the Clippers would be doomed while Griffin was out.

Who could blame them? The Clippers have been mostly disappointing this season despite Griffin giving them a spectacular 23.2 points, 8.7 rebounds, and 5.0 assists per game. There isn’t a team in the league that can survive losing one of the league’s best 10 players and be as good or better.

The Clippers have responded by winning both of their games since Griffin was sent to the sidelines. If two games aren’t enough of a sample size for you, the Clippers are 11-6 without Griffin dating back to last season when Griffin missed 15 games due to having elbow surgery needed after having a staph infection.

There are a few reasons as to why the Clippers have been able to stay comfortably above .500 without arguably the league’s best power forward. The biggest one, both figuratively and literally, is DeAndre Jordan.

With all the Clippers drama that has happened since that time last season between February and March, you can be forgiven if you’ve forgotten how dominant DeAndre Jordan was in Griffin’s absence last season. In those 15 games last season, the Clippers went 9-6 despite giving more minutes to players such as Spencer Hawes, who was in the midst of a terrible season, and veterans who one season later are no longer in the NBA like Glen “Big Baby” Davis, Hedo Turkoglu, Dahntay Jones, and Ekpe Udoh.

Since the bench wasn’t capable of filling in for Griffin, the Clippers needed the other members of their starting unit — Chris Paul, J.J. Redick, Matt Barnes, and DeAndre Jordan — to step up.

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Of course, it would be foolish to talk about the team’s success without mentioning Chris Paul. Paul has been stellar carrying the team without Griffin and has shown that he’s still capable of throwing up MVP-caliber numbers as he has hit the wrong side of age 30. While it doesn’t make it any less impressive, it wouldn’t have blown anyone’s mind that Paul would be great in an increased role.

What we didn’t know at the time was that DeAndre Jordan would be capable of becoming such a force on both sides of the court. Jordan had established himself as the lesser third of the Clippers’ big three, but with major flaws. Jordan hadn’t yet established himself offensively outside of being the recipient of lobs from Chris Paul.

The Clippers were facing a crucial part of the season without Griffin. In the 15 games that he missed, the Clippers played 10 games against playoff teams, including eight against Western Conference playoff teams that were jockeying for playoff positioning.

That’s when DeAndre Jordan made it inevitable that he’d be receiving a max contract in the upcoming off-season and established himself as an irreplaceable member of the Los Angeles Clippers.

Jordan averaged 14.9 points and 18.5 rebounds per game without Griffin by his side. There were games like the one against the Mavericks where he looked unstoppable, going off for 22 points and 27 rebounds. Two days later, he went for 24 points and 20 rebounds against the Houston Rockets. Jordan flashed potential that perhaps he was growing into a dominant big man on both sides of the ball in the mold of Dwight Howard in his Orlando Magic days.

When Griffin returned, those dominant games became fewer and further between. That trend has continued into the 2015-16 season to the dismay of Clippers fans. Sure, he’s one of the best big men in the game, but he’s not the same player he was for those 15 games. Is it that he knew his next paycheck had room to rise if he rose to the occasion and not as hungry after receiving an $87.6 million contract for his services over the next four years? Or is it that his frontcourt mate Griffin makes it harder for Jordan to better use his skills?

He’ll get a chance to answer those questions while Griffin is out, but the early answer appears to be the latter.

Since Griffin went down, the Clippers have won both of their games and looked good in the process. The wins have been against so-so teams (Jazz, Wizards), but it’s still encouraging that the team can beat teams that are beatable without arguably their best player. Not too many teams would be able to survive for a few weeks if one of their best two players went down.

How are they making up for the loss of a player like Griffin, who stuffs the stat sheet in points, rebounds, and assists?

Spacing.

The Clippers have given Griffin’s position and minutes mostly to wing players who can spread the floor instead of giving them to someone who common sense would be Griffin’s replacement, Josh Smith. The main beneficiary of the spacing has been the player who spaces the floor the least, Jordan. Having an extra player behind the three-point line as opposed to Griffin in the short corner or elbow has resulted in a perfect situation for Jordan to thrive on runs to the rim after setting picks.

Like this play against the Jazz, where Trevor Booker leaves Jordan to hedge against Chris Paul, leaving so much space in the paint that Jordan misses a lay-up that he cleans up himself.

No Blake, so much space for DeAndre. https://t.co/ySaIeeRn2r
— Cameron (@ThatManCam) December 30, 2015

Or check out the one below, where Jamal Crawford goes around his man forcing Marcin Gortat to make a decision in which he can only lose.

With Griffin around, there’s usually an extra player within a step or two of rotating around to prevent the dunk. Often, it ends with someone rotating over to Jordan and creating an obstruction for the alley-oop. Sure, it might end up with Griffin getting an open shot from the mid-range or a few extra passes against a defense rotating to make the offense keep passing, but the dunk is easily the best option for the Clippers. After all, which is better: a DeAndre Jordan dunk, a Blake Griffin mid-range shot, or an open jump shot from one of the wings?

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Surrounding Chris Paul and DeAndre Jordan with shooting threats is a winning lineup. A Paul-Jordan pick-and-roll to the rim is as deadly of a combination as you’ll find in the NBA and placing shooting threats around them make life easier for the shooters and provide Paul and Jordan more space to work with.

For the shooters, a few Paul to Jordan alley-oops will make the defense start collapsing, opting to send extra help defenders that leave shooters open. It’s one of the reasons Paul Pierce was able to score 20 points in 27 minutes against the Jazz.

Watch below as the Clippers go small against a Jazz frontcourt of Trey Lyles and Jeff Withey. Withey isn’t comfortable defending the perimeter and runs to the paint after recognizing that a Paul-Jordan alley-oop was on the way. Paul, being the world-class point guard that he is, finds that Withey left Paul Pierce open in the process and lets the veteran knock down the jumper.

After the game, even the opposition was admitting that the Clippers were more difficult to defend without Blake Griffin in the lineup.

Wall said facing Clippers when smaller was tougher b/c of spacing for PnR. "It probably would’ve been a little easier with Blake in there."
— Jorge Castillo (@jorgecastillo) December 29, 2015

What does all of this mean?

It would be naive to say that the Clippers are better off without Griffin. He’s one of the league’s premier forwards and a unique talent. There isn’t a team in the league that would be better off without a player like Griffin on the roster.

It does imply that Jordan is being held back by Griffin playing next to him and while the Clippers are better off with Paul, Griffin, and Jordan closing games out, they might need to experiment more with them playing more with the bench in the middle portions of the game.

It’s a weird predicament, but a fortunate problem that the Clippers have. It’s always great to have this type of talent and they do help each other out. Griffin isn’t the rim protector that Jordan is and Griffin is helped by having Jordan behind him defensively. The Clippers can run the offense through Griffin, giving Paul the rest of carrying the offensive load on every possession as he enters his thirties. Collectively, they complement each other but not in a way that allows them to show their full potential, especially for Jordan.

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Jordan is averaging 14.5 points and 13 rebounds per game in the two games since Griffin’s injury, one of which was a 17-point win where Jordan rested more towards the end. It’s likely that there is a monster DeAndre Jordan game or two lurking sometime soon. If Jordan can continue to put up great numbers while winning games without Griffin, it could serve as proof that the Clippers need to shake things if they keep disappointing when Griffin comes back.

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