Clippers’ week in review

Last week in Clipperville featured some interesting happenings on and off the court, especially surrounding Blake Griffin.

Griffin wrote a column about working for former Clippers’ owner Donald Sterling. In the piece, for the Players’ Tribune, he revealed his experience at one of Sterling’s infamous “White Parties” and likened Sterling to a “weird uncle.”

Griffin also made headlines for being picked as the third favorite to win the MVP award this season, according to a betting website. Griffin’s hard work is apparently paying off -- he spent more than two hours in the gym each day over the summer working on his shooting.

The Clippers went one for three in preseason games last week, losing to Utah on Monday (102-89), beating Utah on Friday (101-97) and losing to Denver on Saturday (104-93).

Rebounding remains one of the biggest problems for the Clippers. The Clippers were outrebounded by the Jazz on Monday, 55-32. Friday’s game against the Jazz, however, featured a better effort on the boards by the Clippers, who only lost the battle by just a single rebound, 40-39.

Friday’s game also featured a scuffle between Griffin and Trevor Booker. After Booker delivered a hard foul on Griffin in the third quarter, Griffin responded by grabbing the back of his head. Both players had to be restrained by teammates.

After the game, Griffin said that he considered taking his retaliation further. “I was going to and then thought, it’s preseason, it’s not worth it,” Griffin said.

Griffin added that there will come a time when he doesn’t show so much restraint. “Yeah, probably, probably,” he said. “But I’m not going to just do it for no reason.”

Friday’s and Saturday’s games featured very strong performances by Jamal Crawford. On Saturday, the reigning Sixth Man of the Year scored 23 points on six-for-12 shooting in 36 minutes of play. Against the Utah Jazz on Friday, Crawford scored 25 points on eight-for-13 shooting from the field, including five for seven from the three-point line.

The Clippers have now started Matt Barnes, Reggie Bullock, Chris Douglas-Roberts and Joe Ingles at the small forward position over four games. Rivers would like Barnes to come off the bench, if possible, but it remains to be seen how the rotation will play out.

There are only three games remaining in the preseason. The Clippers are 1-4 so far in exhibition play. They practice in San Francisco on Monday, then play the Golden State Warriors on Tuesday at 7:30 p.m.