Five takeaways from the Clippers’ 83-80 loss to Chicago

It was an off night for the Clippers even before they lost Blake Griffin. Their shots wouldn’t drop, and they appeared lethargic on the second night of a back-to-back situation, scoring 11 points in the second quarter. Somehow, fueled by an unlikely grouping of reserves, they nearly pulled out what would have been an improbable victory before falling short during an 83-80 loss to the Chicago Bulls on Thursday night at United Center. Here are five takeaways from the game:

1. Griffin’s ejection seemed excessive. Yes, the third-quarter play that led to Griffin’s ejection looked bad, with the Clippers forward’s hand swiping across Taj Gibson’s head and causing it to recoil backward. But there was no intent to harm, and Griffin said he simply missed while going for a block. Even Gibson seemed OK with it. “Man, I’m old school,” Gibson said afterward. “It’s basketball. You’re going to get hit. It’s no big thing.” It is to the referees, who have a mandate to protect players. “Obviously, he wasn’t trying to commit a flagrant foul,” Clippers Coach Doc Rivers said of Griffin. “He was trying to swing to catch him but when you wind up like that … if you miss and hit a guy, it’s an automatic flagrant these days and that’s just the way it is. At the end of the day we’re trying to protect players, so I guess you just have to live with it.”

2. The Clippers might have found something with the small-ball second unit. It was an odd-looking group that Rivers trotted out in the fourth quarter, including three ballhandlers in Austin Rivers, Lance Stephenson and Jamal Crawford alongside Wesley Johnson and Josh Smith, but it worked. The Clippers played loose and free while making eight of 11 three-pointers in the quarter, wiping out a 12-point deficit and nearly completing an epic comeback. Doc Rivers said his only regret was not going earlier to an alignment that included Stephenson at power forward. Austin Rivers seemed to have an epiphany based on the way the reserves played together in the fourth quarter: They need to stop trying to copycat the way the starters play. “We just need to get stops and run,” he said. “Everyone needs to be in attack mode, shooting and living with the results. That way, we have an identity. You’ve got to have an identity to know what you’re going to have every night. I think when we run and gun and play consistently like that, we’ll do well.”

3. Stephenson deserves more playing time. He didn’t play in the first half but helped the Clippers up the pace at a time when they needed to be more assertive with Griffin out. Stephenson identified what triggered the change afterward. “Just playing free and playing together, that’s when the game comes easy for everybody,” said Stephenson, who finished with five points, four assists, three rebounds and one steal in 18 minutes. Stephenson appears to be a better playmaker with the second unit than Austin Rivers, whose scoring is up and assists down in his second season with the Clippers.

4. Paul Pierce’s decline into basketball oblivion continued. The 10-time All-Star played only five minutes, missing both of his shots and going scoreless. He’s now had six scoreless games this season — twice as many as he had in his first 17 NBA seasons combined. Pierce couldn’t even get on the court in the second half after Griffin’s ejection.

5. Playing Brooklyn on Saturday will be a reminder of an opportunity lost. The Clippers have repeatedly referenced their loss to the Nets last season at the Barclays Center as a game that cost them in the playoffs. They lost to a bad team and ended up having to play Houston on the Rockets’ home court in Game 7 of the Western Conference semifinals -- because the teams finished with identical records but the Clippers lost the tiebreaker. Having beaten the Nets would have given the Clippers the better record and homecourt advantage in that situation. “We don’t want to have that same taste in our mouth coming out of Brooklyn again,” Griffin said.

Follow Ben Bolch on Twitter @latbbolch