Blake Griffin and DeAndre Jordan share a moment during Thursday’s victory over the Dallas Mavericks/Staff photo by Keith Birmingham

• Blake Griffin had another fine performance. He scored 26 points in just under 27 minutes. He shot 11 of 17 a night after he shot 14 of 20 in a win at Sacramento. Griffin is shooting 67.6 percent (25 of 37) from the field in the first two games.
• It was good to see the emotion coming from DeAndre Jordan, who got into a brief fracas with Dirk Nowitzki after Nowitzki fouled him hard under the basket in the second quarter.
• The Mavericks were down a few players, but Doc Rivers was nevertheless happy with the defense played by his team, which held Dallas to just 36.1 percent shooting – 20 percent (6 of 30) from 3-point range.
• The play of reserves Austin Rivers and Jamal Crawford was vital. Rivers scored 14 points on 5 of 10 shooting, Crawford had 15 points on 6 of 11 shooting.
• Three of the Clippers’ new players did not have a good time of it in this one. Starting small forward Lance Stephenson shot 1 of 5 and reserves Josh Smith and Paul Pierce were 1 of 5 and 1 of 6, respectively. That’s a combined 3 of 16. That could spell defeat on many nights. However, the rest of the team picked up some of the slack and when all was said and done, the Clippers shot 43.7 percent from the field. Not terrific, but not horrible.