LOS ANGELES — Anthony Morrow lined up from 20 feet, fired and — being a Nets player — missed. The ball bounded to the right side, toward the single row of expensive seats. The Clippers dynamic power forward, Blake Griffin, dove headlong over a couple of fans, saved the rebound, jumped back over the fans, raced downcourt and scored. It was all part of what has been one of the most damaging aspects to the Nets’ slow start to the season: namely, slow starts to games.
There was athleticism, power, will in the first-quarter move. But Griffin did more, not the least of which was displacing Nets from where they were planted or stood, legally or illegally. And it looked like the Clippers would make mush of the Nets.
But then Griffin went to the basket and was up in the air 3:22 before halftime. DeShawn Stevenson moved to intercept. Griffin hit the deck.
“That was the only way I could foul him. He was dunking all over the place. I didn’t try to foul him hard, but when he’s up in the air like that there was no way I could give a foul but to bring him down,” said Stevenson, who was hit with a flagrant foul.
“I’m not trying to hurt him but at the same time, he’s coming through the lane dunking. I didn’t try to do anything personal, but it’s a hard foul and he kept getting dunks anyway so it really didn’t matter.”
In a way, it did matter. The Nets went on to lose to the Chris Paul-less Clippers 101-91 yesterday, but they did go down with a fight.
The Nets (3-11), down 15 after one quarter and 18 in the second period, roared back through Griffin’s antics and elbows, forced a tie in the fourth quarter but again came up short.
“I really feel bad for our guys,” said Nets coach Avery Johnson. “We just got to do something different in the first quarter.
“We did a better job of getting a body on [Griffin] in the second half. I liked the physicality of our guys and it started with DeShawn Stevenson with that play in the air in the first half,” Johnson said.
So as a result, the potential of a 2-2 Western trip, something any NBA coach would sign off for, died. And despite some highly positive, highly physical moments this still went down as a loss that finished the trip at 1-3.
“It’s tough,” said Deron Williams (14 points, 6 assists) who tied the game, 81-81, with a 3-pointer at 6:46. “We’ve had a brutal schedule. We’ve been on the road and played a lot of games in a short amount of time. We’re a young team and a team that was just put together.
“We’ve been hampered by bad starts.”
Caron Butler, the man who almost was a Net, scored 15 of his 20 points in the first quarter when the Clips, who dominated inside with Griffin (23 points, 14 rebounds) and DeAndre Jordan (12 points, 9 rebounds) and Reggie Evans (6 points, 4 rebounds), raced to a 32-17 lead. The Nets jabbed and threatened but really could make no headway, despite the scoring of MarShon Brooks (19 points, 8 rebounds), Mehmet Okur (15) and Kris Humphries (14 points).
Until the bench kick-started things, picking up on Stevenson’s foul. Shelden Williams was physical and Jordan Farmar had 10 points off the bench.
“It’s a game of runs and we made our run and they’re not a championship-caliber team who can’t have runs made against them,” Humphries said.