Five takeaways from Clippers’ victory over Trail Blazers

Here are five takeaways from the Clippers’ 106-102 victory over the Portland Trail Blazers on Saturday at Staples Center that improved the Clippers to 4-2 heading into a game against the defending NBA champion San Antonio Spurs on Monday at Staples Center:

1. The Clippers showed up fashionably late for the season. There was too much talent on this roster for the Clippers to play poorly much longer than the season’s opening week.

They didn’t put together a complete game against the Trail Blazers but a strong second half in which their defensive intensity kicked up several notches sparked their comeback from what had been a 14-point deficit in the first half.

“I think it was just our mind-set defensively,” Clippers forward Blake Griffin said. “We were really good in the third quarter. We started out and got a couple of stops and then got to the line and scored, and I think I came out at about six minutes, and they even stepped it up from there and did a tremendous job, and I think it started on defense.”

2. Griffin is a gamer. The Clippers’ team doctor offered to give Griffin an excused absence after examining him Saturday morning.

Griffin, who had flu-like symptoms, didn’t just say, “No thanks.” “I looked at him like he was crazy,” Griffin said. “That was never really an option.”

Griffin pushed through the weakness and nausea to finish with 23 points in 35 minutes, giving his team a major lift in its best victory of the season.

3. DeAndre Jordan was as good as it gets defensively. The Clippers’ center snatched a Chris Paul-like five steals, setting a career high, and seemed to materialize everywhere his team needed him during a third quarter in which the Clippers held the Trail Blazers to 17 points.

He also grabbed a crucial offensive rebound with eight seconds left in the game, knocking a missed Paul jumper out to Jamal Crawford to keep a possession alive.

This was the kind of performance that, if sustained, should put Jordan on the NBA’s first team defense and make him a candidate for defensive player of the year.

4. J.J. Redick was going to get hot eventually. Redick hardly resembled one of the top sharpshooters in the NBA over the season’s first five games, making only 28.9% of his shots and 23.3% of his three-pointers.

He practically couldn’t miss against Portland, making 11 of 13 shots, including two of three from beyond the arc. He said he’s a big believer in the law of averages, but there was nothing typical about a pregame moment in which his 11-week-old son, Knox, saw his father courtside before the infant’s first NBA game.

Redick acknowledged being emotional before staging a performance that will make his son proud once he grows old enough to understand the basics of basketball.

5. The Clippers need to get Spencer Hawes right. The team’s big off-season acquisition has not made the kind of impact that was envisioned in the season’s early going, averaging 6.0 points and 4.0 rebounds in 17.7 minutes per game.

Clippers Coach Doc Rivers revealed after the Trail Blazers game that Hawes was dealing with a strained left foot that had been bothering him for about a week. Hawes aggravated the foot against Golden State on Wednesday and was placed on a minutes restriction, finishing with one point and three rebounds against Portland.

Rivers also acknowledged he’s had trouble integrating Hawes into the lineup properly in the first six games. Hawes was expected to play starter’s minutes off the bench while backing up both Jordan and Griffin. So far, it hasn’t happened.