A rare miss for Clippers announcer Ralph Lawler

Traffic issues, we know them well.

After all, who hasn’t suffered through a mega-traffic jam in Southern California and had to miss work?

Well, not Ralph Lawler. Until Wednesday.

Lawler, the Clippers’ venerable play-by-play man, was making his usual drive to Staples Center from his home in La Quinta, along with his wife, Jo.

He never got to the game against the Spurs, running into a massive tie-up near Cabazon, two accidents causing the closure of Interstate 10 in each direction.

“We left the house at 2:15,” Lawler said during Friday’s morning shoot-around here. “We didn’t get through the traffic jam until 9:15 at night. We traveled, in the next 6 1/2 hours, six miles. We went less than a mile an hour.”

He joked that he was much calmer about the situation than his wife. And there was a bit of a party atmosphere out there. “People were playing music in their cars, getting out and they were dancing in the freeway,” Lawler said.

Etc.

Blake Griffin’s media demands are only increasing, and it was impressive how he multitasked in the morning. He was finishing an interview with a couple of reporters as a trainer wrapped his knee in ice and Griffin joked about not getting left behind.

That happened the last time the Clippers were in Denver. But it was purely accidental. The team thought Griffin was going to stay around for extra work with a couple of other players after the morning shoot-around.

At least Griffin didn’t have to call a taxi. One local reporter joked that he would have given Griffin a ride.

“It [the bus] came back,” he said, smiling.

lisa.dillman@latimes.com

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