Jamal Crawford takes the lead as Clippers beat the Pistons, 101-96
Jamal Crawford dribbles past Detroit’s Aron Baynes during the Clippers’ 101-96 victory Saturday at Staples Center.
The Clippers drew up the first play of Saturday’s game for Jamal Crawford, in the hopes he would find a rhythm. With Chris Paul and J.J. Redick sidelined again with injuries, Coach Doc Rivers figured, they might need him late.
Crawford missed that first jumper, but by the game’s final seconds, the rhythm had been found. He had torched the Pistons’ defense, so when Blake Griffin set him a screen with the Clippers up by one and 18 seconds left, both defenders chased.
He slid the pass to Griffin, who drilled a face-up jumper. The Pistons did not recover. The Clippers won, 101-96.
Without Paul and Redick, Crawford scored 37 points, his most since Jan. 25, 2014. He added eight assists and six rebounds. The Clippers broke a two-game losing streak and won just their second game in six tries.
“That was huge,” Griffin said. “He wasn’t just hitting the shots, but he was getting everybody else involved. It’s just fun to play with a guy like that.”
Crawford and Griffin, who had 34 points, nine assists and eight rebounds, helped the Clippers erase a 17-point second-quarter deficit against a young, confident Pistons team.
In a battle of arguably the league’s two best rebounders, Clippers center DeAndre Jordan and Pistons center Andre Drummond, the result was a stalemate. Jordan had 16 boards and 10 points. Drummond scored 18 with 19 rebounds — just below his season average.
But with Drummond reasonably contained, the Pistons exploited weak perimeter defense. They made seven of their first 13 three-point attempts. Ersan Ilyasova made four of seven three-pointers for the game, and he tied Reggie Jackson with a team-high 20 points.
The Pistons’ 60 first-half points were their highest total this season.
“Our defense was ...” Jordan began, pausing to choose his words, “…not very good. Doc had other words to say about it.”
Rivers adjusted. By the third quarter, the Clippers were switching more on defense and stopping dribble penetration. The Pistons scored just 36 points in the second half. They missed their final 14 three-point attempts.
“Our defensive execution with the switching was as good as we have had this year,” Rivers said.
As the defense tightened, Crawford went off. He scored 14 points in the third quarter. He made five of 10 attempts. He made pull-up jumpers, catch-and-shoot three-pointers and turnarounds. His finger roll, with a half-second remaining in the third, gave the Clippers their first lead since the game’s second minute.
Crawford is 35. He has been in the NBA for 15 seasons. He played nearly 41 minutes Saturday. By the third quarter, Austin Rivers said, he could see Crawford start to tire.
In the fourth quarter, Crawford knifed through the defense, and took a runner from five feet that didn’t even reach the rim.
“It was like two feet short,” Crawford said. “I was like, ‘OK, it’s time.’ ”
He was exhausted. He finally asked for a breather.
“I really commend him for being as old as he is — he’s Benjamin Button, though,” Jordan said.
Crawford said the experience has made him wiser.
Take, for example, the pick-and-roll with Griffin. Even with the shooting game he was having, he knew where the ball must go.
“I see him work on that shot every single day,” Crawford said of Griffin. “When I saw it, actually, he was working on the same shot. I didn’t know how hard he worked. I thought it was just commercials all the time.”
With the three-point lead, the Clippers opted to exchange fouls with the Pistons. The strategy worked. Crawford made all four.
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