The Los Angeles Clippers cruised to a 117-101 victory over the Houston Rockets behind Blake Griffin’s third triple-double of the 2015 NBA Playoffs. 

This game started out really chaotic with both teams showing their defensive prowess down near the rim. In his first playoff start, Austin Rivers opened the scoring by drilling a three pointer but then was beat by the veteran Jason Terry as he blew by him for an easy lay in to make the score 3-2. However, Trevor Ariza was the most impressive player in the opening period as he scored 11 of the Rockets first 15 points. In fact at one point, Ariza had one point less than the entire Clippers team did. Then towards the end of the quarter James Harden took over. First, he provided an excellent pass to Clint Capela for a free layup. And as the period was just about to end, Harden drilled a three pointer that ignited the Rockets faithful further.

Hedo Turkoloug checked in to start the second quarter and started his evening by hitting a three pointer in his first shot attempt. But that was not enough, at least early on in the quarter, as Trevor Ariza continued his hot start. Ariza found Dwight Howard free near the rim as the pair completed an alley-oop. Pablo Prigioni also came away firing off the bench making six straight Rocket points thanks to the long ball to extend his sides lead to 13. Jamal Crawford had to step up big in this game in Chris Paul's absence and he did just that by making big shots and distributing the ball verly well. The one flaw in his game tonight was his high turnover to assist ratio. If Paul has to sit out for an extended period of time, that will have come down.

Los Angeles was taking advantage of Houston's turnovers, however, as they had 17 points off of 11 turnovers midway into that second frame. Blake Griffin started to take over as well. Dwight Howard had to deal with the size and strength of DeAndre Jordan which he was able to do most of the night but no one on the Rockets could really guard Griffin effectively as he ended the night leading all scorers with 26 points. When the half was all said and done the Clippers had trimmed the lead down to just four points. 

In the third quarter, the Clippers offense came to life as they had their highest scoring quarter in the playoffs so far and took an 83-77 lead at the end. JJ Redick was held scoreless in the opening 24 minutes but exploded for 12 points after the halftime break. The Clippers were getting basically everything they wanted on the offensive side of the ball as they were moving the ball with great percision, looking for that open man and caused the Rockets all sorts of fits. One thing that might help Los Angeles in this series is that the Rockets do not have as strong as a bench as the Spurs did and if they can build any kind of lead with the staters, Chip Hales' team might be in a bit of trouble. 

To start the fourth, the Rockets looked they had a chance to get back into this game because they were matching the Clippers shot for shot in the early going. However, Matt Barnes and Jamal Crawford combined for three straight shots from beyond the arc with a Blake Griffin free throw sandwiched in between to go on a 10-0 run to really blow this game wide open. James Harden then went on a small scoring spurt of his own by scoring five unanswered points to cut the lead to eight. But that was not enough because the Clippers made their free throws when it mattered and closed out game one in style. 

Game two will take place in two nights in Houston with the tip-off scheduled for 9:30 PM EST.