Blake Griffin rebounded the ball, led his own slow transition. The Clippers were recently down as many as 16 points, seeming to have completely imploded, especially after Mo Williams earned himself a double technical. The Clippers couldn’t stop Barea let alone Dirk and the dominating lead that they had created in first quarter appeared nothing more than a vague memory. But after a pair of free throws from Gordon, some defensive stops and a Jamario Moon three, the Clippers found themselves back in the game. The Clippers found themselves with Blake Griffin, their superstar, taking over. As the Mavericks picked Blake up in that slow transition, Blake spun and laid the ball in for a bucket, the lead down to 7. The fans went wild, what seemed like an impossibility as recently as 2 minutes of game time before, now seemed possible.

The Mavericks tried to answer with a Nowitzki short jumper and he missed, which opened up the opportunity for Blake Griffin to bustle in for another layup and bring the Clippers within 5 with 3:19 to play (Griffin finished with 25 points on 10 for 14 shooting, 17 rebounds, 3 assists and 3 steals).The Clippers, seemingly, could win this. The crowd was in the game, excited to root on the Clippers especially after some calls unpopularly swung to the Mavericks way, and with the Clippers having beat other good teams, the comeback seemed possible.

But then the Mavericks came out of the timeout and that Barea found himself open in the right corner and bombed in a three. The elation in the building quickly fizzled as an 8 point lead with 2:58 took the wind out of the Clipper fans sails. The loss of momentum might have affected Randy Foye, too, as he threw the ball away. Even when Jason Terry missed his jumper for the Mavericks, Eric Gordon lost the ball to Clippers bench nemesis, Jose Barea, and allowed for the him to swoop in for the layup and the ten point lead with 2 minutes remaining.

J.J. Barea played superbly, scoring 22 points on 6 for 8 shooting, and handing out 6 assists, but this wasn’t the first time that Barea crushed the Clippers. In his last appearance against the Clippers, Barea scored 25 points on 9 for 12 shooting, so maybe you could count this as an improvement, but there wasn’t much. I asked Vinny if he had a game plane for Barea.

“Yeah, there was a game plan, but it wasn’t a very good one obviously,” Vinny said. “There’s so much attention to Dirk, so much attention to Jason, then Chandler and Marion on the weakside and if you’re zoning up off them it leaves Barea’s ability. You can’t leave Dirk and then if you switch, Dirk posts up at the free throw line. Then if you go zone, there’s a bunch of shooters out there and they’re attacking off the dribble. They don’t settle. You got Terry and Nowitzki and Kidd. These guys know how to play and make shots. And Barea, his penetration, his quickness, he’s tough. Tough in the open court, sometimes he’s hard to find and even if he didn’t get to the basket, he’s making plays for the shooters. He gives them a totally different dimension.”

I like Barea’s game, but he’s not as good as Vinny was making him out to be. Barea isn’t Deron Williams, he’s not even Mo Williams. What seemed strange was the player on the Clippers most capable to defend Barea, aside from Gordon, sat on the bench for all but two minutes of the game. If there ever was a player built for sneaking through gaps and suffocating Barea, Eric Bledsoe would be that kind of player. He’s young, but Bledsoe has shown the types of strides this season that warrants more than two minutes of play. Even if Barea blew by Bledsoe, it’s not like anyone else was stopping Barea. Even Gordon had his looks, and Barea still refused to slow down.

“I didn’t think [Bledsoe] was into the game,” Del Negro said. “I didn’t think he was guarding. I mean Barea blew by him twice. I think he’s developed tremendously, but tonight wasn’t his night and we had to go a different direction.”

I like that Vinny teaches lessons to the rookies, but wouldn’t a second, closely supervised stint given Bledsoe the feeling that his coach wanted him to succeed?

Regardless, the Clippers still had bigger struggled, notably, their turnovers. After starting out the first quarter so cleanly (one turnover), with such a good turnover differential (+5), they finished the game with 17 turnovers and some huge ones down the stretch. The blame can be shared over a lot of the players, Foye and Gordon had the two killer turnovers at the end, but Blake and Mo also had 4 and 3 a piece. That’s the problem with young teams, they don’t play as smart and cohesively. They allow bench players to go off, they turn the ball over and lose momentum, they get hung up on referees, and tonight the Clippers showed just how young they are. If the Clippers want to progress, and I’m sure they do, they’re going to have to work incredibly hard improving their effort and their focus because they have so much to learn.

Notes:

-Blake Griffin breaks records. After getting his double double record, Blake overtook Terry Cummings for the most points for a rookie in a season.

- Blake Griffin spins and fakes. Blake showed a more consistently expanded offensive repertoire. The three consecutive spin moves to cut the deficit to 5 were impressive, but Blake also had a couple up-and-unders that allowed him the space from Tyson Chandler.

- Eric Gordon played very poorly tonight. He shot 1 for 9 from the field in the first half and finished with 15 points on 4 for 18 shooting. Obviously, it’s not the touches, as Gordon still gets those, and it could very well be the lingering effects of the wrist injury, however it could be that Mo doesn’t quite know where to get Eric the ball yet.

- The bigs. I thought both centers played well tonight. Kaman played 26 minutes and scored 12 points on 6 for 10 shooting and pulled down 8 rebounds. His highlight play was a slick drive from the high post that resulted in a reverse layup. He didn’t have any blocks, although the foul that he was whistled for on Tyson Chandler probably could have been ruled differently in another game. DeAndre was 4 for 4 from the field, scoring 8 points and grabbed 8 rebounds in 23 minutes. Like Kaman, he had few blocks (only one), but that could also be the style of play for the Mavericks as they are a jump shooting team.

- Randy Foye had two huge blocks on Peja Stojakovic and was effective for the Clips off the bench. He made 2 threes, was on the receiving end of a great pass from Gordon and played small forward for a portion of the game. This was probably one of the stranger developments of the game. With a team as large as the Mavericks, VDN went to Foye on Marion for stretches of the game.

- Mo Williams had a fantastic quarter, when Jason Kidd covered him. He scored 13 points and dished out 3 assists en route to a 28-23 lead over the Mavericks. However, Mo lost his momentum when the Mavs began to hide Kidd on other players, taking away Mo’s severe speed advantage. Mo never recovered, only scoring 5 more points on 1 for 5 shooting and two assists.

The Clippers will end the season the way they started it, with a brutal schedule of opponents. In the next 8 games, they play Dallas, Phoenix (road), OKC, Memphis (road), OKC (road), Houston (road), Dallas (road) and Memphis. Of all those opponents, only one is under .500, the Phoenix Suns (36-37). The whole schedule combined has, currently, a .599 winning percentage and the three best teams (Dallas at 52-21, OKC 49-24 and Memphis 41-33) the Clippers have to play twice.

Two of their last three home games will happen this week, tonight against the Dallas Mavericks and Saturday against the Oklahoma City Thunder, who are two of the toughest teams in the league. Both have at least twice as many wins as losses and have MVP caliber players enjoying great seasons (Nowitzki, Durant and Westbrook), so the Clippers will test their mettle against these teams.

Tonight’s match-up, the Mavericks, remain the lone elite team in the West that the Clippers have not upset this year. They’ve nipped the Spurs, the Lakers, the Thunder, the Nuggets (with and without Carmelo) and the Hornets (when they were elite) in the West as well as the Celtics (on the road), the Bulls (on the road), and the Heat in the East. The Mavs have matched up very well against the Clippers and they also sport the best road record in the league (26-10), so the Clippers will have their hands full.

This season has had a lot to do with progression, after all, if a team is not good, the next best thing is if they show legitimate signs of progress (let’s not use hope due to Roeser’s recent comments). This year started with a bloodsucking 1-13 streak that drained the team of any hope to win now. But they improved with those aforementioned big wins, they started to win at home against quality opponents (like the Heat and Lakers) and finished with a 9-5 record in the month when they feasted on home cooking. February was the month of the road game, and while the expected improvement didn’t show (largely due to Eric Gordon’s absence), the Clippers have turned it back around in March. If the Clippers win tonight, they’ll match that 9-5 monthly record of January, having won almost as many games on the road as they played in that first month (three road wins to 4 road games played in January, the Clippers lost all four January road games). A win over the Mavs would give the Clippers a boost of quality wins comparable to January, when they seemed so hot. Wins over Dallas and the Celtics (on the road) might not be as sexy as wins over the Lakers and the Heat (after the heat had won 21 of 22 games), but they’re still equal quality opponents and they had a .500 record on the road. So what’s the next step in the progression? Beating a succession of quality teams, some on the road. That stretch starts tonight for the Clips.

Bonus, David Thorpe breaks down the improvement of rookies across the league. Here’s what he says about two Clippers:

Blake Griffin, Clippers
Griffin’s numbers have dropped a bit recently, but that doesn’t mean he hasn’t improved. Quite the contrary. To continue to rack up 20-and-12 performances is even harder to accomplish now that he’s drawing so much more attention from opponents.

Taking into account where he was a year ago — recovering from a serious knee injury — makes his progress even more impressive. It often takes players a full year to recover mentally from any kind of injury involving their lower extremities. And let’s be honest, not even the most passionate Clippers fan expected Griffin to be an NBA superstar in his rookie season.

If Griffin makes a jump next season like he did this season, you’ll hear MVP chants in L.A. — and not for a certain shooting guard on the Lakers.

Eric Bledsoe, Clippers
Bledsoe looked like a steal back in July thanks to his incredible athleticism and powerful body. But he was far from ready to be an NBA point guard. Although he still has to get much better if he wants the reins to Griffin’s team next season and beyond, he is showing serious improvement in running the show.

Bledsoe looked good early on when he was getting lots of playing time and has continued to read the game better even when his minutes dropped. Explosive off the dribble, he is better now at picking his spots: Blowing past his man only to run into trouble in the paint has become less of an issue.

Double bonus, news that the Elgin Baylor suit has gone the way of Michael Olowokandi’s NBA career.

Keys to the Game

- Blake Griffin. The Dallas Mavericks give Blake fits. In the Clippers two losses, he has averaged 18 points on 35 percent shooting and 10 rebounds, well below his season averaged of 22.4 points and 12 rebounds on 50 percent shooting. The Mavericks throw their length at Blake, Tyson Chandler, Brendan Haywood and even Dirk Nowitzki have given Blake plenty of problems. This, of course, comes when he also has to guard Dirk Nowitzki, the most versatile power forward in the game. The last los was relatively close,112-105, so an on-point Blake Griffin could mean a win.

- Outside shooting. Under Dwayne Casey, the Dallas Mavericks employ a very aggressive and oft-used zone defense. To break that zone, the Clippers have to make their long balls, whether that’s from Eric Gordon, Mo Williams or Randy Foye (even if Foye’s toe is on the line).

- Bench play. The Clippers aren’t known for their deep bench, and with Eric Bledsoe, Al-Farouq Aminu, Ike Diogu, Brian Cook, Craig Smith and DeAndre Jordan, you’re not looking at a group of offensive weapons. Bledsoe, Ike and Craig are the best at creating their own shot, but the unit isn’t very balanced from a perimeter shooting perspective, which could give them fits when facing the Dallas zone defense. Oppositely, the Mavericks have a very good bench, anchored by supersub stalwart, Jason Terry. They have averaged 46.5 points from the bench (bolstered by last games 53 point combo of Jason Terry and Jose Juan Barea), which will have to come down for the Clippers to win.

Injury Report

None

Down 1, with less than two minutes to play, Chris Kaman found himself at the top of the key with the ball on the slow break. He hesitated for a second, then drove to the rim, spun around Ed Davis and dumped the ball off to Blake Griffin who jammed the ball through the rim for the 89-88 lead.  More...

Expect the game between the Raptors and Clippers to be a spirited contest. Over at Clippers.com, D.J. Foster is talking about the Raptors having a “whiplash game”, or a bounce back game, after the Raps suffered a humiliating 138-100 beatdown at the hands of the Golden State Warriors. Add to that, the Clippers look to rebound from their frustrating loss to the Lakers last night as well as avenge their defeat to the Raptors back in February.

Keys to the Game

- DeMar DeRozan. He returns to his hometown and Staples Center a month after feeling like he was short changed in the dunk contest. He made his comments to reporters that his dunks were underscored because they didn’t use silly props. Even the announcers have taken to saying “No props!” when he dunks, which intimates that DeRozan hasn’t forgotten the slight. That kind of motivation for a scorer (16.6 points per game, 47.5 percent from the field) could lead to a retribution game.

- Get Eric Gordon going. Normally a paragon of consistency, Eric Gordon has struggled to find his groove. In the four games since his return he has put up 29 points (9 for 20 shooting), 10 points (4 for 11), 32 points (11 for 21) and, last game, 7 points (3 for 14). No surprise that the Clippers lost the games when EJ scored 10 points or fewer, so they’ll need to get him in a rhythm.

- Attack the paint. Clippers are sixth in the league with 42.2 points per game in the paint, and Toronto doesn’t have the most intimidating front court. Ed Davis did post a monster game against the Clippers in February (13 points on 6 for 8 shooting, 14 rebounds and 3 blocks), but that’s far from standard (Davis averages 6.8 points and 6.8 rebounds on the year). The Clippers need to take advantage of their size and strength.

Injury Report

Amir Johnson: sore left ankle, questionable
Reggie Evans: sore right foot, questionable

The Clippers dropped their final clash of the season with the Lakers 112-104 in an entertaining but sloppy game last night at the Staples Center. Watching the game, it was hard to figure out how the Clippers kept it as close as they did. Leading scorer Eric Gordon suffered through his worst shooting night of the season, missing his first 11 shots without managing to earn a single trip to the line. By the time he finally made three shots in the final minutes, the game was pretty much decided.

If it wasn’t for Mo Williams, the game wouldn’t have been close at all. The Clippers started the second half down 9, and managed to achieve a rare 3rd quarter victory (32-28) thanks mostly to a 14 point quarter from Williams, including two circus threes. Williams had his best game as a Clipper tonight, scoring a team high 30 points on 11-16 shooting, including 4-7 from beyond the arc.  (The more you watch Mo Williams play, the more he reveals himself as a gunner – if he’s feeling it, he won’t hesitate to call his own number. A lot of the shots he made tonight, particularly in the third quarter, ranked high on degree of difficulty. Only time will tell if Williams can sink enough step back threes and reverse lay-ups to justify such difficult attempts, but for a guy who was supposed to be a soothing antidote to the inconsistency of Baron Davis’ razzle-dazzle, Mo scores pretty high on the “Noooo, nooooo, nooooo….. YESSSSSSSSS!!!” scale himself.)

Still, despite Mo’s efforts, it was hard to figure out how the Clippers were still within a basket midway through the fourth quarter. They turned the ball over more than the Lakers, shot worse, grabbed fewer offensive rebounds, and got to the free throw line less (a whopping 39-18 discrepancy). Besides a solid effort from Blake (22 points, 6 rebounds, 4 assists, 2 steals), the Clippers didn’t get much from remaining starters Ryan Gomes or Chris Kaman.

But as sloppy as the Clippers were, the Lakers were often sloppier. Much has been made of the Lakers hot play since the All-Star break, but their play tonight was punctuated throughout by moments of inattention or flat out goofiness. Matt Barnes let two defensive rebounds bounce off his face, and tapped in a third for a Clippers basket. Andrew Bynum threw an outlet pass so accurate that Phil Jackson didn’t have to move to catch it. And Ron Artest set the NBA record for most missed breakaway slams to start a quarter in the third, first getting rejected by the rim and then, thirty seconds later, losing control of the ball on his way up and hurling it wildly against the backboard. Often, the Lakers -particularly the starting unit – were slow to get back on transition after missed shots; the Clippers 21-12 advantage in the fast break helped keep them in the game.

Another reason the Clippers were able to keep it close was that the bench made a rare appearance, outscoring the Lakers’ bench 34-14. Randy Foye and Al-Farouq Aminu were particularly good. Foye did it in his usual way, getting hot from outside in the fourth quarter, and scoring 8 of his 12 points in quick succession on tough jumpers just inside the arc. Aminu had one of those tantalizing games that he and fellow rookie Eric Bledsoe seem to specialize in. On bad nights, it sometimes seems that Farouq has trouble getting into the flow of the game — but then on good nights his play makes you throw around crazy, made up adjectives and adverbs like “Pippin-esque” and “Dengly.”

Two plays in particular stuck out for me. On the first, Aminu grabbed a rebound, surveyed the floor, dribbled past mid-court, realized that no one was stopping him, and attacked the basket with three giant bounds, flushing the ball through the hoop before the D realized he was driving. The rare combination of rebounding instincts, ball handling, aggression, and athleticism you need to pull off this play is rare – almost Blake-like. Having two forwards who can turn rebounds into lay-ups is a scary thing. The second play was as much about Blake Griffin’s growing basketball IQ as it is about Aminu’s skills, but whatever. Midway through the fourth, Blake had the ball on the left block, guarded by Lamar Odom. Griffin shifted the ball away from the basket as if he was considering a turn around jumper, which forced Odom to come a half step out of the lane. That space created an alley for Aminu to streak down, and Blake hit him in stride, whipping the pass past Odom’s face. It would have been a masterful play no matter who was running it, but for two rookies to pull it off is extremely encouraging.

(And while we’re on specific plays, tonight’s game provided two more entries for the “Blake Griffin: Don’t Start Taking Me For Granted Yet Please” file. First, Randy Foye found Blake on an alley-oop from a good ¾ of the way down the court – a good 70 feet – possibly the season’s most impressive long range hookup. Later, Mo Williams failed to pass the ball early enough on a botched fast break and ended up trapped underneath the basket. As a last resort, he threw the ball up in the air about three feet behind a leaping Griffin. Blake – already in the air – managed to reach his right arm back over his head like Plastic Man, corral the ball a good two feet behind his neck and then somehow maintain control of the ball as he windmilled it home.)

Turnovers continue to be a problem. There were “only” 16 tonight (compared to, say, the 25 against the Wizards earlier in the week), but many came off wholly unforced errors and led to 12 momentum killing fast break points for the Lakers. I admit I didn’t know Mo Williams’ game that well before he came to the Clippers. It’s natural that Mo would be compared to Baron, and just as natural to contrast the point guards in an easy, binary way. Williams can stroke it consistently from deep; Baron couldn’t. Williams prefers to run a pick and roll; Baron was more comfortable throwing the ball inside. But as a distributor, Mo shares some of Baron’s most aggravating qualities. He often tries too hard to force tough passes through impossibly small openings, and seems to have the same over-confidence in his ability to keep his dribble alive while slaloming through defenders. Williams had 5 turnovers last night, and he has a higher TO% (% of possessions that end in a turn over) than Baron Davis, both this season and over his career. It’s worth noting, because the assumption has seemed to be that Mo Williams’ arrival would lead to a more careful brand of basketball. Instead, you’re left to wonder what the Clippers can do about the fact that their top four scorers (Kaman, Williams, Gordon, and Griffin) are all prone to giving the ball away.

If Ron Artest continues to play with the defensive intensity he brought tonight, it significantly increases the Lakers’ chances for a third consecutive title. Tonight, Artest had 3 turnovers to go along with 3 blocks (all 3, somewhat unusually, came off close-outs on the perimeter), 15 points, and a game high +/- +21. The last turn over Artest forced was the game clincher. Down 5 with under 4 minutes to play in the game, the Clippers had a fast break opportunity off a DeAndre Jordan blocked shot. Blake took one dribble in the paint and attempted to rise past Artest, who somehow managed to artfully poke the ball out of Blake’s hands before he could elevate. Blake wanted a call but didn’t deserve one, and that was basically that.

And in the end, the Clippers just couldn’t get a stop when they needed one. There was Kobe being Kobe in the fourth quarter again, scoring 12 of his game high 37 points, and basically driving poor Eric Gordon out of his mind. Remember how Eric Gordon and Kobe Bryant had essentially identical statistics after the first two Lakers-Clips game? Not tonight. In addition to his offensive woes, Eric Gordon was manhandled by Kobe, who not only made his usual handful of late-MJ-style midrange jumpers but also got to the charity stripe an amazing 17 times. (I know this is typical Laker-hater bile, but… seriously, does any player get the “respect” from refs that Kobe does? Randy Foye fouled out of the game guarding him for less than 15 minutes – and on replay it looked like Foye didn’t even touch Kobe on two of the fouls.)

The downside to the Clippers (finally) playing at full strength is that it’s a lot harder to make excuses. With either Kaman or EJ on the bench for the majority of the season, Clipper fans have been quick to blame many of the season’s losses on a lack of firepower due to injury. Of course, the Clippers are stronger with their stars on the court, but games like this are reminders of the Clips’ struggles early in the season, when the question wasn’t firepower, but finding a balanced scheme to maximize the talent. There have been times since EJs return – most obviously against the Wizards – when he has been visibly frustrated by his lack of touches. Assuming the team doesn’t trade Kaman over the summer, the Clippers are going to enter next season with at least four players who probably consider themselves primary or (at the least) secondary scorers. Figuring out how to make that work should be the focus of Vinny and his team over the final 10 games.