For Clippers, words of encouragement from injured Blake Griffin

A Clippers team meeting Saturday afternoon at their hotel to discuss strategy and to watch film in preparation for Game 4 of the playoffs began as a consoling session.

They all wanted to offer support to teammate Blake Griffin, who had been declared out for the rest of the NBA playoffs because of a plantar plate injury to his right big toe.

In turn, Griffin encouraged them to complete the task of defeating the Utah Jazz in the best-of-seven Western Conference first-round series even if he was not going to be on the court to help the cause.

“It was a good meeting with Blake in there,” Clippers coach Doc Rivers said Sunday. “I thought that was important. Guys got a lot out to tell him. He had some things to say so I thought it was a very good meeting.”

Rivers said “naw” twice when asked to share what Griffin told his teammates.

“It’s a team message,” Rivers said.

Ever since Griffin was injured in the second quarter of Game 3 on Friday night, the Clippers’ thoughts were never far removed from the 6-10 power forward.

His spirits had improved enough on Saturday to deliver a message to his teammates.

“For us to continue on our journey, man,” DeAndre Jordan said. “He obviously feels bad that he’s out, but it’s not his fault. And we told him that. But he wants us to continue to play, man, as if he was on the floor.”

“Blake wouldn’t want us to just bow out,” Jamal Crawford said. “So for us, he wants us to just keep going.”

Griffin will be reevaluated when the team returns to Los Angeles and will see a foot and ankle specialist.

Eventually, Rivers said Griffin will “for sure” have surgery.

“I feel bad for Blake,” Jordan said. “It’s always unfortunate when somebody goes out, especially a guy like that who works so hard every day on his body, on his skill set, on everything. For this to happen again, it sucks. I know that it’s something that he’s upset about. We all feel for him. But at the same time, there’s nothing we can do about it. Nobody is going to feel sorry for us as a team. We have to continue to come out and play.”

This marks the second consecutive postseason Griffin has gone down before the end of the playoffs.

He reinjured his left quadriceps tendon in Game 4 of the first-round series against the Portland Trail Blazers in 2016, and did not return.

“We’ve been through it so many times with different players that now it’s like, ‘Oh, well, we got to figure it out.’ Like I said before, nobody is going to feel sorry for our team,” Jordan said. “We’ve just got to figure out how to play and how to use different guys to the best of their abilities and help our team win basketball games. And that’s really it.

“We can’t let this have too much of an emotional toll on us and distract us from our goal.”

broderick.turner@latimes.com

Twitter: @BA_Turner