Clippers begin season with 114-106 road win over Trail Blazers

The Clippers’ 82-game NBA journey began in the very same city where their championship dreams were crushed last season.

They were done in by injuries to Chris Paul and Blake Griffin and a Portland Trail Blazers team ready to inflict more playoff pain on the Clippers.

But the Clippers were whole and up to the task for all of the physical activity in their regular-season debut Thursday night at the Moda Center, having a healthy Paul and Griffin dogged in their pursuit of leading Los Angeles to a 114-106 win over Portland.

When Paul drilled a three-pointer for a 12-point lead that forced the Trail Blazers to call a timeout late in the game, the little point guard pumped his fist and slapped hands hard with his teammates on the bench.

Paul’s 25 points, five rebounds and five assists had helped the Clippers get the victory.

Griffin’s 27 points and 12 rebounds had helped ease some of the bad taste for last season’s playoff series.

There were moments when the game turned chippy, one of the altercations leading to a flagrant foul on Mason Plumlee for pushing Griffin in the back midway through the fourth quarter.

Another time came later in the fourth when C.J. McCollum was called for a flagrant foul for pushing DeAndre Jordan while he was airborne attempting a dunk.

There was an exchange of shoves by Jordan and Plumlee that led to offsetting technical fouls.

It was back to basketball after that, and it was the Clippers who started slow in the second half after building a nine-point halftime lead.

But while the starters were letting that lead evaporate because of their lack of energy at the start of the third, the Clippers reserves came back late in the quarter with a strong push to help the team pull back to an 82-82 tie entering the fourth.

The second unit of Marreese Speights, Austin Rivers, Jamal Crawford, Wesley Johnson and Raymond Felton played defense, created turnovers and scored baskets in the third quarter to keep the Clippers in the game.

By the time Griffin and Paul returned with 7:33 left in the fourth quarter, the Clippers had taken a 90-87 lead.

More important, both were around for the finish of this game, unlike in the playoffs.

Paul (broken right hand) and Griffin (reinjured left quadriceps tendon) both were injured in Game 4 here last spring, and they weren’t in Portland for the series-clinching Game 6 the Trail Blazers won.

But Clippers Coach Doc Rivers and so many of his other players were here on that fateful night, a memory that had not faded even as the prepared to play their 2016-17 regular-season opener.

“Usually when you lose, they always go back to there,” Rivers said before the game. “Not where you can do anything about it, but you remember it. A couple guys, Blake and CP, they don’t have that memory. They weren’t in the building. So, I think the other guys do, for sure.”

broderick.turner@latimes.com

Twitter: @BA_Turner