DeAndre Jordan on Warriors playing well: ‘So are we’

DeAndre Jordan is not impressed by the Golden State Warriors.

After the Clippers beat the Phoenix Suns on Monday to improve to 4-0, tied with the Warriors for the only undefeated record in the Western Conference, a reporter was quick to focus on the Warriors’ recent success.

Said the reporter: “DJ, Golden State is playing really well.”

Responded Jordan: “So are we.”

Said the reporter: “They won by 50 [against the Memphis Grizzlies on Monday].”

Responded Jordan: “That’s fine, we won.”

The Clippers will play the Warriors at Oracle Arena on Wednesday, a matchup that will be interesting for many reasons, only some having to do with basketball.

The teams have a chippy history that’s included hard fouls, accusations of Blake Griffin flopping, a scuffle at the end of their Christmas Day game in 2013, and the Clippers refusing to go to chapel with the Warriors on Halloween 2013. The Clippers knocked the Warriors out of the playoffs in a hard-fought, seven-game, first-round playoff series in 2014.

Recently, Doc Rivers and Klay Thompson were engaged in a verbal sparring match after Rivers said luck was involved in the Warriors’ championship-winning run last season. Thompson called Rivers “bitter” and pointed out that the Warriors had beaten the Clippers in three out of the teams’ four games last season. Thompson added that the Warriors would have loved to play the Clippers in the postseason if the Clippers hadn’t allowed the Houston Rockets to come back from a 3-1 deficit to win their second-round playoff series.

Rivers played nice when he found out Thompson was upset. He claimed that Thompson misunderstood his comment about luck, and that no insult was intended. He added, however, that he was surprised that the reigning champs were so “sensitive.”

Griffin, unprompted, took a try at clarifying his coach’s comment on the Warriors’ luck in his post-game interview Monday.

“I’ve heard a lot of stuff about Doc said this, Klay said this, but at the end of the day, Doc talks about it with us all of the time, and I understood what he meant,” Griffin said. “He talks about how you have to be lucky to win a championship, but at the same time teams make their own luck by winning the most regular season games like they did last year. That puts them on the path to playing the right teams, that puts them on the path to have home-court advantage.”

Before Griffin played peacemaker, he took a shot at the Warriors in his own way. As soon as he sat down for his post-game interview Monday, he was asked about the Warriors. His response:

“I thought we played well. ... Sorry, what did you say?”

Rivers said Wednesday’s game will be a big challenge for his team, though he said that regardless of how many points the Warriors have recently been winning by, right now the teams are on even ground.

“Listen, you’re both as good as your record,” Rivers said. “They’re undefeated and we’re undefeated. No matter how many points you win by, the records are the same. They’re the champs, they’re a really good basketball team. They remind me of us [the Boston Celtics] in 2008, people forgot, the following year we were better in the first 15 or 20 games before Kevin [Garnett] got hurt. We were beating teams by 30 every night it felt like. That swagger is hard to knock off.”

But Rivers said his greatest obstacle before Wednesday might not even be basketball related.

“Hopefully I don’t say anything dumb in the next 48 hours and we can just play basketball,” Rivers said, before adding, “Don’t bet on it.”

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