Clippers can’t take anyone for granted

Reporting From Toronto

Humbling … or a blaring wake-up call?

Blake Griffin, given the menu choices, went with all of the above on Saturday, less than 24 hours after the Clippers made national news by losing to the Cleveland Cavaliers.

Not only did the Clippers become the first team to lose to the Cavaliers in nearly two months — Cleveland had lost 26 in a row — but they gave up a mind-boggling 126 points, a season high for the Cavaliers.

“Both of those — humbling loss, a wake-up call,” said Griffin, who had 32 points and 13 rebounds. “They wanted it more and it showed. Now I’ve got to do a better job myself of stepping up and being a leader for this team, hitting shots and playing defense and all that.”

Baron Davis agreed about the nature of the loss.

“Very humbling. I thought we played hard,” he said. “But we didn’t play the defense that we wanted to play and we should be playing. Definitely humbling. Frustrating at the same time because we played well enough to win that basketball game.”

On deck, another potentially dangerous and struggling foe: the Raptors. Toronto has lost 16 of its last 17 games, and the Clippers have often stumbled against the minnows of the NBA.

“People act like we’re some great road team,” Clippers Coach Vinny Del Negro said, looking exasperated. “Like we can take anybody easy.”

Perhaps this was why Del Negro held an especially long film session before hitting the practice court at Air Canada Centre. The doors didn’t even swing open for the media until late in the afternoon, about an hour and a half later than expected.

Defense, you might guess, was the focal point of Saturday’s extensive film session. As in, actually playing some on occasion.

The Clippers are trying to avoid having this turn into a repeat of last season’s desultory eight-game trip in January when they emerged with two wins and hit bottom with back-to-back losses to New Jersey and Minnesota.

“Use last night as motivation,” Griffin said. “We don’t want it to happen again. We’re not very good on the road. We haven’t been very good on the road.”

Said Davis: “We have to come out with more of a defensive mind-set. We have to really take care of the little things. Losing to Cleveland, we allowed them to have too many easy baskets, dunks.”

Etc.

Davis was asked about Andre Miller’s recent remarks criticizing the choice of Griffin on the All-Star roster.

“Andre loves his teammate in LaMarcus Aldridge, but it wasn’t necessary to say what he said about Blake,” Davis said. “He knows that. But sometimes you just can’t censor people who already have a preconceived notion in their minds.

“He has every argument to support his teammate but not to put anybody down. It’s no need for people being haters. I don’t think he was doing it on purpose, but I think he approached it the wrong way.”

Davis was teased about clearing things up with Miller this summer and said, joking: “Yeah, I’m going to put him in a head-lock.”

Guard Randy Foye was not at practice, allowed to miss the session to be on hand for the retirement of his jersey at Villanova. He will be back for Sunday’s game.

lisa.dillman@latimes.com

Twitter.com/reallisa