He's just good, No. 1. He trusts the actions that we are running, No. 2. – LA Clippers head coach Doc Rivers
SALT LAKE CITY — "Take Note" indeed.
When Los Angeles Clippers power forward Blake Griffin exited Friday night's playoff game in the first half with what turned out to be a bruised big toe on his right foot, the momentum the Jazz had seized by building a nine-point halftime lead seemingly should have swung even more favorably in Utah's direction.
But Chris Paul would have none of that.
And 19,000-plus frenzied Jazz fans, proudly wearing their white "Take Note" T-shirts for Utah's first home playoff game in five years, wound up having to do just that: Take note that the Clippers could still win without their star big man — much like the Jazz showed they could do in Game 1 without stellar center Rudy Gobert.
Paul, the Clippers' superb point guard, poured in 24 second-half points, including nine in a decisive 15-0 surge down the stretch when Los Angeles forged in front, and the Clippers overcame a tremendous 40-point night by Utah's Gordon Hayward to grab a 111-106 victory over the Jazz in Game 3 of their first-round series at raucous Vivint Arena.
"He's just good, No. 1," Clippers coach Doc Rivers said with admiration for Paul. "He trusts the actions that we are running, No. 2.
"And he has an amazing will, you know, he really does. He's just a tough, tough guy. He's stubborn in a very, very positive way. All the great ones have that in 'em, like they're stubborn in that they're not gonna lose.
"And that's how he felt, and you can feel that, and I think his energy in that kinda rubbed off on everybody on the team," Rivers said.
Paul had 15 points in the game's final four minutes, and he also wound up with 10 assists and seven rebounds in a brilliant all-around performance by the 11-year NBA veteran, who refused to let his team lose after Griffin was sidelined for the entire second half.
"We just hung in there," Rivers said. "I didn't like all of our composure in the first half. Sometimes you want it so much that I thought we were getting in our way, all of us.
"I thought the second half, even though Blake wasn't there, we just kept playing and we just kept hanging in there. It felt like we got it to six, they got it to 10; we got it to four, they got it to 10.
"But we just hung in there long enough, and then C.P. down the stretch was phenomenal. He really was, on both ends, really," the Clippers' coach said.
The Clippers, now leading the best-of-seven series 2-1 with their first-ever playoff win in Utah— they were 0-5 in postseason games in Salt Lake City before Friday — Jazz will square off again here Sunday at 7 p.m. in Game 4.
Griffin had been the leading scorer through the series' first two games, averaging 25 points per game for a Clippers team that came to town deadlocked with the Jazz at 1-1.
But after scoring a team-leading 11 points with six rebounds in the first half of Friday's Game 3 matchup at Vivint Arena, Griffin came up limping after a drive to the basket and was forced to leave the game with 3 1/2 minutes remaining before halftime.
X-rays on the injured toe, taken at the arena, were negative, but he did not return in the second half.
And after falling behind by as many as 14 points in the first half, the Clippers repeatedly battled back.
Thanks to a seven-point spurt by backup guard Raymond Felton — who came into Friday's game averaging 4.5 points in the series — Los Angeles cut Utah's lead to two twice before halftime, but the Jazz regained a nine-point advantage, 58-49, at intermission.
Then in the second half, the Clippers kept coming back, time after time, overcoming the loss of Griffin to finally catch the Jazz at 82 in the final minute of the third quarter.
L.A. hung around and hung around, never allowing Utah to pull away, and Paul popped in a 3-pointer from the top of the key with four minutes remaining to put the Clippers ahead 97-96 — their first lead since early in the first quarter.
Paul soon followed that big basket with a layup to make it 99-96, then scored two more times to give L.A. a seven-point lead, 103-96, capping the Clippers' critical 15-0 run in the fourth period.
Much was made about the tough defense that the Los Angeles Clippers' Luc Mbah a Moute had been playing on his Jazz counterpart, Gordon Hayward, in the first two games of their Western Conference first-round playoff series.
Two lengthy streaks continued here Friday night in Game 3 of the Utah Jazz-Los Angeles Clippers playoff series.