The Los Angeles Clippers needed to come in to Game Two at STAPLES Center with a clear mission. End any hope early, and tie this series as quick as possible. That they did.

The Clips jumped out to an early 13-4 lead and did not look back, winning in dominating fashion, 138-98 in front of another raucous sell-out crowd in Downtown Los Angeles.

The quick Clippers start was fueled by incredible early energy from Chris Paul and DeAndre Jordan. Jordan had a few huge defensive plays, one being a monstrous block of David Lee as he tried to dunk the ball. Chris Paul also had a quick four assists to fuel the Clippers offense.

Another helping hand in the Clippers early effort was Blake Griffin, who had six early points in the opening six minutes, and actually stayed on the court tonight. Griffin ended up finishing with a game high 35 points on 13-17 shooting, and also went 9-10 from the line in the game.

That same quick start by the Clippers was also aided by another slow start by the Warriors. They started Game One 0-8 from the field, and tonight started 2-11 early on. Steph Curry did not score his first points til the second quarter, and the only one who was scoring early was Klay Thompson. Thompson was the main spark plug in Game One for the "Dubs" as he put in 22 points. Early on in tonight's game he scored seven, but coach Mark Jackson decided to leave him in after he picked up his second foul. Jackson also decided to do the same thing with Iguodala in Game One, and the same result happened with Thompson, as Klay picked up his third foul with 4:10 left in the opening quarter.

After Thompson's third foul, the Warriors went on a bit of a spurt to close the gap, but a huge Blake Griffin dunk almost brought the house down early, and it gave the Clippers an early 12 points lead.

A big boost was the Clippers bench, who were held to only a combined 26 points in the opening game. By the 8:00 mark of the second quarter the bench had scored 21 combined points, and was absolutely on fire to widen the 11 point Clipper lead after the first quarter.

As the Clippers ran the lead up to over 20 after a beautiful Blake Griffin base-line drive made it 52-31, Mark Jackson called a timeout and seemed helpless. He knew the Clippers were going to come out and try and dominate, but he did not see it getting as bad as this did.

Turnovers also killed the Warriors as they finished with 26 total. Most of that was due to the ball-hawking defense of the Clippers. Their length really disrupted the flow of the Warrior offense, and did not allow the likes of Curry to get in a rhythm.

Curry did not score his first basket of the game until the 2:40 mark of the second quarter, but by that time the Clippers were already leading 58-35 and the dunk show was already commencing.

DeAndre Jordan received a lob from Chris Paul that made the lead 63-37 right before halftime, and that was the early dagger. The halftime lead wound up to be 67-41 and Blake Griffin was the star of the show with 21 points. By halftime the Warriors had 15 turnovers, and it seemed like the Clippers scored on every one of those.

The third quarter turned into a wide-open scoring fiesta as both teams put up over 30 points in the quarter, but there was nothing slowing down the Clippers offense. Steph Curry tried his best to bring his team back in the game, scoring 20 of his 24 points in the third quarter, but he did not get much help.

The Clippers ended up widening their lead to a game high (at the time) 33 points as early as five minutes into the quarter.

There was also some frustration in the third quarter as there was four technicals handed out. Three of them to the Warriors, Jermaine O'Neal, Curry and Marreese Speights. The lone Clippers technical was handed out to Big Baby, Glen Davis.

The fourth quarter was mostly saved for the reserves, as the Clippers put up some more impressive bench stats. The Clippers finished with 56 bench points, which is around the season norm. They saw some better shooting by Jamal Crawford which was very important, and double-digit scoring nights from Danny Granger, Hedo Turkoglu and Darren Collison.

Curry and Thompson did not have a great night at all, besides the third quarter from Curry. The "Splash Brothers" were 2-9 from three, and Thompson only hoisted up a total of four shots in 20 limited minutes due to his foul trouble and the fact it was a blowout. The Warriors were 4-19 total from beyond the arc, which is very unlike them.

The Clippers set some playoff franchise records tonight. The 138 points is a Clippers playoff record, as well as the 12 total three pointers made on 25 attempts, and finally the 40 point winning margin. In a season where many records were set, this one is probably the most impressive because of the rebound from the Game One home loss, and the opponent.

Chris Paul aided the effort of Griffin and the bench, with 12 points and 10 assists, but said the Clippers can't celebrate this win too much as the Warriors will come out hungry in Oakland.

Oracle Arena will be rocking for Game Three which takes place on Thursday night. Game Four will follow on Sunday night. The extended rest does bode well for the Clippers though, as the Warriors have to sit around and think about this loss that they were thoroughly dominated in, for an extra day. Best thing that could have happened to the Clippers before tonight's game was the quick turnaround and they thrived.

SCORING SUMMARY
  1 2 3 4 TOTAL
WARRIORS 20 21 32 25 98
CLIPPERS 31 36 38 33 138
FIELD GOAL SHOOTING BY QUARTER
  1 2 3 4 TOTAL
WARRIORS 8-21 - 38% 8-16 - 50% 5-14 - 35.7% 8-20 - 40% 36-76 - 47.4%
CLIPPERS 11-19 - 57.9% 12-23 - 52.2% 14-21 - 66.6% 10-20 - 50% 47-83 - 56.6%

Game Three Information: Sunday at Oracle Arena in Oakland, California. Tip time is at 7:30pm PST. Coverage is on TNT.

VAVEL Logo
About the author
Nick Grodotzke
Graduate of California Lutheran University. A huge fan of all sports. Personally a fan of the Dodgers, LA Kings, Clippers, Chargers, Arsenal and UCLA Basketball. Very opinionated and open to discussion about any topic!