Los Angeles Clippers rookie phenom Blake Griffin has been wowing NBA fans all year with his great dunking and outlandish leaping ability. He’s quickly accomplishing a feat many thought to be impossible; changing the Clippers image for the better.

Just 41 games into his rookie campaign, he’s attempting and finishing plays few would expect from a first-year player, making him a must-see attraction for fans across the world. He lived up to those high expectations again tonight in a win against the Minnesota Timberwolves by attacking the lane, throwing a pass off the backboard to himself and finishing with a slam dunk. Video after the jump.

Plays like that are exactly why there’s such a hype building around him. It’s only bound to get bigger too, with his participation in this year’s All-Star Slam Dunk contest in February sure to win over even more new fans and with the team playing so much better. For more on Blake and the Clippers, you can read my weekly “Diary of a Los Angeles Clippers Fan” column.

-Will.

Will R. is a journalist/writer who covers sports, news and music for several websites. His music work can be found on www.WestCoastRydaz.com

The Los Angeles Clippers are quickly becoming “streak-busters” in the NBA this season. They ended the Miami Heat‘s 13-game road winning streak last week (which also stopped the Heat’s 9 consecutive overall wins) and today won a hard-fought game against the Los Angeles Lakers 99-92, ending the Lakers seven-game winning streak.

It was a closely contested battle that clearly had both teams frustrated, culminating with a shoving match and ejections for four players.

With the game in its final seconds and the outcome clearly headed toward a Clippers win, Lamar Odom got tangled up with Blake Griffin and tried to toss him away by angrily pulling at his jersey. Before the referees could fully handle the situation, veteran Clippers point guard Baron Davis ran across the court and shoved Odom aside, resulting in some more pushing and shoving from both sides.

As a Clippers fan, I was happy to see Baron react so quickly to stick up for Blake, who is regularly on the wrong end of cheap shots and physical plays from frustrated opponents. It had been a tough game to swallow for Blake up until that point, with foul trouble plaguing him in the first half and almost taking him completely out of the game.

He responded well in the second half with 16 of his 18 points and finished with 15 rebounds for his 26th straight double-double. According to ESPN Stats & Information, that ties him with NBA legend Hakeem Olajuwon for the 4th-longest such streak in the last 25 seasons.

The scrum ended with Baron, Blake, Odom and Ron Artest being ejected, but with only five seconds left in the game it didn’t matter much. It was confusing to see Blake and Artest get tossed, since neither appeared to do anything wrong, but it is what it is. As for Baron, it wasn’t the first time he made a point of showing the Lakers that he’s not afraid to mix it up with them. Here’s some video from last January, coincidentally almost a year ago to the day.

Baron may be one of the smaller players on the court, but he clearly stands up for his teammates, which is a welcome sight. Here’s his take on it all after the game, via Fox Sports West.

“I was just helping my teammate and being a backup,” Davis said. “People take shots at Blake, and they’ve been doing it all season. … It was just a bunch of lollygagging and arguing, but it wasn’t nothing. It was just playing tag.”

Whatever it is that’s motivating the Clippers lately, it’s working. They’ve won nine of 13 since their poor 5-21 start and are showing they’re ready to take on all challengers.

-Will.

Will R. is a journalist/writer who covers sports, news and music for several websites. His music work can be found on www.WestCoastRydaz.com

Life for a Los Angeles Clippers is far from easy. We’ve been stuck in losing/rebuilding/praying for a better day mode since 1984, when the franchise came to Los Angeles. Along the way we’ve drafted guys like Benoit Benjamin, Michael Olowakandi and Yaroslav Korolev during the lottery. Yeah, not exactly superstar name recognition.

In other words, things never go right. When the team drafted college basketball phenom Blake Griffin in last year’s draft it seemed like there was a chance for excitement again in Clipper Nation. Then he got hurt and missed his entire first season. Typical right? Wrong. He rehabbed and healed and has came into the new season to show off his exquisitely powerful dunking skills.

If you don’t believe me just check out some ridiculous highlights of his from tonight’s game against the New York Knicks.

Yeah, they lost 124-115 but it wasn’t Blake’s fault. He finished with 44 points, 15 rebounds and 7 assists. Talk about wowing the crowd. Even a perennial All-Star like Amare Stoudemire had to give him his props during the game, peep.

It’s the second time this young season that he’s been among the top 10 trending topics on Twitter, with fans across the NBA commenting on how great he’s playing. He also got some love on Slam Online, which has individual videos of each of the three dunks.

Sadly the loss dropped the Clippers to 1-13 on the season, which I’ll discuss more in next week’s “Diary of a Los Angeles Clippers Fan”. Hopefully they’ll have a few more wins by then.

-Will.

Will R. is a journalist/writer who covers sports, news and music for several websites. His music work can be found on www.WestCoastRydaz.com

The season has started off poorly yet again for my Los Angeles Clippers, who came into tonight’s game against the San Antonio Spurs with zero wins and three losses, but they’ve at least made the games fun to watch. First rookie phenom Blake Griffin welcomed himself into the NBA with two monster slam dunks and now Eric Gordon has decided to show he can throw them down too.

The third-year shooting guard showed the world his skills during this year’s 2010 World Basketball Championship and was part of the group that brought home the gold medal thanks (in part) to his outside shooting. Against the Spurs, he showed he can also drive to the basket with authority.

The two dunks earned him recognition from the announcers, fans in attendance and even the people on Twitter, who are buzzing about the plays via their trending topics. As this gets published the Clippers are down 14 points in the fourth quarter, but even if they lose at least they gave us some fun.

For those who care, my “Diary of a Los Angeles Clippers Fan” column will return to its weekly publication starting Wednesday.

Eric Gordon Monster Dunk – Poster vs Spurs – 11/1/2010 [YouTube.com/NBARauf]

Eric Gordon Dunks on Tim Duncan [YouTube.com/JayWest909]

-Will.

Will R. is a journalist/writer who covers sports, news and music for several websites. His music work can be found on www.WestCoastRydaz.com

The Los Angeles Clippers made their 2010-2011 NBA season debut tonight against the Portland Trailblazers, which also marked the first career game of last year’s number one overall draft pick Blake Griffin.

Blake is known to be extremely gifted athletically and he quieted any initial fears about how he’d recover from last year’s knee injury and subsequent surgery by scoring his first NBA points on a one-handed slam dunk and then adding several more.

He finished the game with 20 points, 14 rebounds and 4 assists, including 9 offensive boards, but the Clipper still lost 98-88. Story of my life, so whatever.

By notching a double-double (at least 10 points & 10 rebounds) he became just the fifth top pick in the last 20 years to do so, joining Derrick Coleman, Shaquille O’Neal, Tim Duncan and Dwight Howard.

Despite the loss, the Clippers showed some promising signs with great effort from Blake, DeAndre Jordan and more. For all my fellow citizens of Clipper Nation, it gives us at least a little excitement to look forward to. Speaking of that, my “Diary of a Los Angeles Clippers Fan” column will return to its weekly publication starting next Wednesday, so keep an eye out for that if you love pain and suffering like most of us Clips fans seem to.

Blake Griffin 2 Dunks in His Debut Game [YouTube.com/NBARauf]

-Will.

Will R. is a journalist/writer who covers sports, news and music for several websites. His music work can be found on www.WestCoastRydaz.com

The NBA season is officially in its last week, which means there will only be two more losses games for the Los Angeles Clippers.

I kid, I kid.

Well sorta, since they are playing the Dallas Mavericks tonight, (who are still playing for the chance to finish as the second overall seed in the West) and since they end the season Wednesday against the Los Angeles Lakers.

Granted, Kobe Bryant and the four guys he forces to pass him the ball for awful shots have been stinking it up the past few weeks and the Clippers just beat the Golden State Warriors 107-104, but their worst is still far better than what the Clippers have shown for months.

Or at least it seems that way. The one-sided rivalry (we Clippers fans usually can’t stand the spoiled team and fans across the hall) still brings out my distaste for the Lakers and makes me root for the Clips to upset them. And for some odd reason I feel good about our chances. Wait though, it turns out Kobe’s not playing the final two games – damn.

The fact that Kobe won’t be in there taking 30 shots means the ball will actually go into Pau Gasol in the post, and sure he’s softer than a 7-foot tub of feathers, but he’s still a tremendously talented offensive machine. Throw in the fact that the Lakers are 5-2 without Kobe’s “great leadership” this season and I can see the Clips getting another L. Blah.

I’ll end the second-to-last Clips Diary of the season on a positive note. In addition to beating the Warriors, the good people over at ClipsNation.com said they held a successful “Clips Nation” night at Staples Center. The bolded link has more info, but there were raffles, free giveaways and more. Even in dismal seasons like this one, it’s always great to see the members of the Clipper Nation band together for fun events. Kudos to ClipsNation.

-Will.

“Diary of a Clippers Fan” will be published Mondays and Thursdays during the regular season.

As I sit and write this, the Los Angeles Clippers are well on their way to losing their 52nd game of the year. They trailed the Sacramento Kings by 16 at halftime – 63 to 47 – after only shooting 44 percent in the first half.

It’ll most likely be their seventh straight loss and the 16th loss in the last 18 games. Even for a franchise as futile as the Clippers, it’s a sad sight and adds to the culture of shame associated with the team. The stats below paint the poor picture better than anything I can say.

“The Clips reached loss number 51 of the season. That makes three straight 50-loss seasons…and 11 in the last 17 years. It would have been twelve, but they were only able to lose 41 games in the lockout-shortened 50-game season of 1998-99.” (via BasketBawful)

And then this gem about the Clips record since the Memphis water-main game. “The Clippers then went on to lose their next three and 31 of the next 41.” (via TrueHoop)

That franchise stink has applied itself to all the Clippers players, including star point guard Baron Davis. Boom Dizzle has apparently had enough of it all, (no he’s not leaving) and he says he’s going to focus on “rebranding the whole Clipper franchise”.

He’s not the first to suggest that, heck even the new guy Blake Griffin had mentioned it before, only to fall victim to the clippers curse and mess up his knee. So I’ll continue to side with skepticism and fear, even though I hope for nothing more than Baron to succeed in his new career mission. After tonight’s game, only three more contests remain for the Clippers, including the season-ender against the Los Angeles Lakers.

-Will.

“Diary of a Clippers Fan” will be published Mondays and Thursdays during the regular season.

I know this is the “Diary of a Los Angeles Clippers fan” and not a diary of me, so I naturally try to keep it as strictly basketball as possible. It doesn’t always work out that way though, and I can’t help but stray from that a bit today, given the parallels I’m seeing between my life and the Clippers season.

Lost? Let me enlighten you.

Through the past week and a half or so, I’ve dealt with being in a rather scary car accident, the unexpected annoyance that comes with shelling out some $ for repairs, and the hopelessly futile feeling of driving around town looking for what appears to be an impossible-to-find car part. Every spot you go to says they have the part, each time you get excited at the search being over, only to eventually find out it doesn’t fit and that you’re back on the wild goose chase.

Sound familiar to any Clippers fans out there? It should.

Pardon the obvious comparison, but this season has been what amounts to one long car crash and supporting the team is like surviving the impact. Blake Griffin‘s injury, the Memphis water-main game and more were all literally accidents, so it’s not a stretch to label them a wreck. Firing Mike Dunleavy – first as coach, then GM – are your standard shabby attempts at repairing the damages received and Baron Davis, Eric Gordon and great draft position are the temporary excitement you feel at thinking you found the answer, only to have it all fall apart.

To a lesser extent, you can even call Kim Hughes, Travis Outlaw, Steve Blake, etc the quick fix-it answers that don’t fix much of anything in the long run. Hey, it’s better than doing nothing at all right? (Please say yes, it eases the pain.)

And since most middle to lower-class income families can’t just afford to go pick up a new Ferrari after an accident, you’re usually stuck making minor improvements to your car and learning to love accept the dents, scratches and doors that don’t quite close right.

For the Clippers and their fans, the forces out of their control (Donald Sterling) have relegated them to settling for less (Brian Skinner, Ricky Davis, etc) and constantly trying to mask ineptitude, poor performances and bitter frustrations with a hope that never arrives. Think I’m lying? We’re banking our future (or at least a part of it) on the chance that LeBron James might come to the Clippers and a decent draft lottery position.

Hmm, cap space for a big-name free agent and high draft picks will save us?

Sorry to crack the half-full glasses of you optimists out there in Clipper Nation, but I’ve seen this movie before and I’m not buying it.

One accident is enough for me and I won’t be fooled into thinking the Clippers are a high-end automotive machine. If you’re reading this and wondering why we Clips fans still support the team, well I guess Hoopties need love to.

So until the day we get a new non-Sterling brand engine, I’ll keep my fingers crossed that President Obama will either pull a General Motors and save us from basketball bankruptcy or create a national “Cash 4 Clippers” program.

-Will.

“Diary of a Clippers Fan” will be published Mondays and Thursdays during the regular season.

You know the season is gone to shi- uh, waste when the most excitement the Los Angeles Clippers have given their fans lately involves a possible on the court altercation between your rental back up point guard and an Aussie center.

Losers of their last three games, we had to settle for enjoying a face-off between the Clippers Steve Blake and Milwaukee Bucks center Andrew Bogut, who before this season was infamous for high-fiving himself between free throws. Not exactly Mayweather Vs. Pacquiao but for a team with the Clippers checkered history, I guess it was good enough.

Blake drew Bogut’s ire after knocking the Bucks Ersan Ilyasova to the floor on a lay up and was rewarded with a hard screen back down court, which caused Blake to angrily respond by getting in Bogut’s face. Good to see the much smaller Blake not back down and his former Portland teammate Travis Outlaw stick up for him too. Check the video out below.

For the Bucks, winners of 17 of their last 21 – including a surprise loss to these Clippers – winning this game and not backing down was a key point, as evidenced by this excerpt from the AP’s recap:

The teams congregated near center court and Jennings got in Blake’s face, but no punches were thrown. Blake and Bogut received double technical fouls and Jennings got a technical of his own.

But it sparked Jennings, who got an outlet pass on a two-on-one break with Stackhouse and froze the defender by faking a behind-the-back pass for a layup that made it 81-66 and brought the crowd to its feet.

The Clippers got picked apart 107-89 of course, so even if that small battle served as a moral victory, they ultimately lost the war.

It didn’t get any better against the struggling Toronto Raptors, who had their way with LA to the tune of a 114-92 win.

Not much to say about the game other than it’s just another poor overall effort. That leaves seven more games for the Clippers this season, with the Denver Nuggets on Saturday.

As the season comes to a close – the recent losses notwithstanding – there is a great opportunity for members of Clipper Nation to get together and share war stories celebrate on Saturday April 10, courtesy of ClipsNation.com and their “Clips Nation Night”.

If you have the chance, make sure to scoop up some tickets (at a discount) for a chance to win some free prizes, watch the Clippers (hopefully) beat the Golden State Warriors and much more. The link above has more information.

PS, paper bag masks are optional.

-Will.

“Diary of a Clippers Fan” will be published Mondays and Thursdays during the regular season.

I don’t really have much to say about the Los Angeles Clippers today, especially after their pitiful performance in a 121-103 loss to the Golden State Warriors. That game alone was a direct insult to the Clips fans who still follow the team, and much like Baron Davis, back spasms of my own have me wanting to take a night or two off.

So in honor of the Clippers and their lack of spirit (no shots at their cheerleaders), I’ll take it easy today and let someone else carry the load for me. In this case, we’ll turn to our fellow Clippers lovers at ClipperBlog.com and ClipsNation.com, who had plenty of shame to point out as well as an assist from ESPN and the Associated Press. Enjoy some of the not-so-fun facts about the most recent Clippers loss.

“Los Angeles beat visiting Milwaukee 101-93 on March 17. But that’s one of only two wins in the Clippers’ last 13 games. Los Angeles quickly blew a chance to build any momentum. It shot 37.8 percent Sunday against visiting Golden State and was outscored 40-14 in the second quarter.

The Clippers are 3-11 this month with two games remaining. This is the 60th time they have had 10 or more losses in a month since the franchise moved from San Diego to Los Angeles for the 1984-85 season — and the 17th time they’ve reached double digits in March.”
-(via ESPN/AP)

“Leave it to the Clippers to give Golden State their fifth road win of the season. After that performance, I really have no desire to spend any time on a recap tonight.

I knew that having Monta Ellis out of the lineup was a bad thing for LA. A 46-14 run over 13 minutes before halftime was the difference in the game – as 46-14 runs often are. During that stretch, the Clippers were completely awful – embarrassingly so. They couldn’t come close to defending the Warriors, which is bad enough. But how can you possibly only score 14 points in 13 minutes against the second worst defense in the NBA?”
-(via Steve Perrin/ClipsNation.com)

“Pardon the coachspeak, but you always learn more from losses than you do from wins. Out of all the teams the NBA has to offer, losing to the Warriors may provide the biggest learning experience possible. Sunday night the Warriors play only eight guys in total, five of which were never even drafted.

This was only the Warriors fifth road win of the season, and they’ve only defeated five playoff teams all year long. Clearly, the Golden State Warriors are not a good basketball team. But this game just goes to show that if you don’t make adjustments and at least attempt to knock teams off their track, they’ll run you right over.”
-(via D.J. Foster/ClipperBlog.com)

The “best” (of the worst) sad statistical info also comes from Steve Perrin over at ClipsNation.com, in his latest post.

“A cursory glance through the schedule shows the Clippers have losses against New Orleans without Chris Paul (twice), Golden State without Monta Ellis (twice), Sacramento without Tyreke Evans and New Jersey without Brook Lopez. Impressive.”

Ugh. This is what we have to deal with. Thankfully there’s only nine games left in the regular season.

-Will.

“Diary of a Clippers Fan” will be published Mondays and Thursdays during the regular season.