Blake Griffin: ‘I’ve never been more mentally and physically exhausted’

Clippers superstar power forward Blake Griffin spoke to the Players’ Tribune about this past season and his plans for the summer. Checkout some of the highlights from the interview below.

Griffin averaged 21.9 points on 50.2% shooting, 7.6 rebounds and a career-high 5.3 assists a game during the 2014-15 season. During the playoffs, he averaged postseason career highs in points (25.5), field goal percentage (51.1%), rebounds (12.7) and assists (6.1).

Some were saying that he was arguably the best complete player in the postseason before the Clippers got eliminated by the Houston Rockets in Game 7 of the second round.

Do NBA players play too many games?

“I think so, but the problem you always run into is how do you go about making it shorter? How do you go about helping the guys out? I personally think the quality of games, the NBA’s product, would be better if guys were more rested and injuries go way down.”

In first-round series against San Antonio, at what point did you think you were going to win?

“Honestly, I’m not just saying this just because this is the typical thing to say, but I felt like we knew we could beat them from the beginning. We knew, but we also knew it wasn’t going to be easy. We knew we weren’t going to come in and get two at home and then go there and get two. We knew what kind of battle we were up for, but I just loved our spirit when we knew we were matched up against them.”

What’s your big focus in this off-season?

“I’m still continuing with all my shooting work that I do with my shooting coach, Bob Thate, but definitely mixing in a lot of post stuff this year, even some high post stuff, some free-throw line stuff. That’s something we kind of got to in the playoffs a little bit — staying at the high post and being able to kind iso[lation] from there, just to force a lot more tougher double team. Every summer, I really put a lot of emphasis on shooting, but I still work on literally everything, and that won’t change this summer. I’ll still put in the time on pretty much everything.”

What have you been doing this summer other than basketball stuff?

“I’ve pretty much been doing just that, just kind of relaxing a little bit. I took two, three weeks off and I’m back in the gym now, but it’s kind of a feel. I was telling some people, I’ve never been more mentally and physically exhausted at the end of a season than going to back-to-back Game 7s, and with the amount of minutes we play. I feel for LeBron [James] in that way; he’s playing 40 minutes a night, trying to do everything. It’s unbelievable what he’s been able to do, or what he was able to do, even though they didn’t win, just because that type of load is incredible. At the end of this season, I was definitely a little bit more tired than I ever have been, which I guess is how it should be every year, but I’m getting back into it. I don’t like to take much time off, I start to get bored, I start to get antsy, so the process has begun already.

Related: A look at how Clippers performed: Spotlight on Blake Griffin