Blake Griffin: Chris Paul can’t be blamed for Clippers’ playoff exit

When Chris Paul joined the Clippers in 2011, the team that had been considered cursed was expected to be a championship contender.

Three seasons have passed. No championship. Not even a Western Conference finals appearance.

Paul, of course, has received much of the blame. He acknowledged that he played “horribly” in Game 5 of the Clippers’ Western Conference semifinal series against the Oklahoma City Thunder, when he made crucial mistakes down the stretch as the Clippers gave up a seven-point lead in the final minute.

But Griffin said during media day on Monday that Paul should not be the scapegoat for the early exit.

“No, obviously we shouldn’t be focused on one person,” Griffin said. “You hear this all the time, but one guy can’t win or lose on his own, and it’s not fair to put any type of blame on anybody. We were all out there playing, we all made mistakes, we all did things we wish we could change. But, like you said, it’s not whether it’s fair or not, it is what it is.... We can’t hold our heads and feel sorry for ourselves because it’s us. It’s nobody else, it’s us, so we have to take that responsibility as a team.”

Paul, a perfectionist who is known to be hard on himself, was devastated after Game 5 and recently told the Los Angeles Times that he cried in the locker room after the game. He added Monday that he worked on a lot of things over the summer, especially the mental aspect of his game.

“Mental toughness is one of the things that I’ve always felt that I was pretty strong at, it’s something that I’ve tried to work at this summer,” Paul said. “Even though I always get better at different things, I think last year as team we sort of learned what the process was, and I think this year, as a team, we’re sort of going to have to fall in love with the process, you know, the ugly days, the rigorous grind of it. I think that’s where you come together as a team.”

Paul added that he’s focused on moving forward this season.

“It would be nice if we could just start the playoffs tomorrow, but we’ve got a lot of work to do before that,” Paul said. “I understand last year we had a great opportunity and Game 5 was horrible. There’s no secret why we lost Game 5. But I think this year gives us an opportunity to get right back there, and they say history tends to repeat itself, this is one that we hope it doesn’t. Tomorrow starts Game 1 of this year and we’ll be ready to go.”

Twitter: @melissarohlin