Flagrant foul levels Clippers’ Blake Griffin

Soaring higher, and crashing harder.

It looked bad when the Clippers’ Blake Griffin went down hard on his back and right elbow as he was taken out by 76ers forward Elton Brand late in the third quarter Wednesday.

Brand, once the face of the Clippers franchise, was assessed a flagrant foul 1.

It was clear that Griffin was suffering from discomfort well after the hard foul.

“It’ll be all right,” he said. “It’s nothing that will restrict me at all. Just swelling in it. It flares up since I’ve been in high school.”

Griffin often jumps right up after getting hit hard. This took a little longer.

“It was painful, but nothing I can’t get up and walk away from,” he said. “I was up in the air a lot longer than I thought. You kind of close your eyes and you expect to land.

“And I didn’t land for a while. So I kind of landed awkwardly.”

Etc.

Philadelphia Coach Doug Collins spoke about the changes made at halftime that helped contain the Clippers. “We made an adjustment at halftime on our screen-roll defense, which I thought really changed the game,” he said. “They had 36 points in the paint in the first half, 16 in the second half. You look at the record, 5-21, that is a very talented team. I was worried at halftime that we were not going to be able to stop them to be able to win the game. We finally got our defense clamped down and kept them out of the paint.” … Guard Randy Foye returned after being out of action because of a strained left hamstring. The Clippers were cautious with him, limiting Foye to just under five minutes. He was one for two and had two points.

lisa.dillman@latimes.com

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