Clippers win by 17 points at Dallas in their second game sans Blake Griffin

DeAndre Jordan

DeAndre Jordan had a whopping 27 rebounds in Monday’s victory at Dallas/Photo courtesy of Los Angeles Clippers, NBA.com

 

It didn’t figure the Clippers could go into Dallas and beat the Mavericks by 17 points without Blake Griffin. But that’s what they did Monday, winning 115-98 at American Airlines Arena in Dallas.

Perhaps Dallas figured the same thing, that the Clippers – losers of four in a row going in – would be easy prey in their second game without Griffin, who had elbow surgery Monday and is out at least three weeks. Not the case as the Clippers broke that losing streak by having three players score more than 20 points. One of them was DeAndre Jordan, who scored 22 and also pulled down a whopping 27 rebounds while blocking three shots.

Chris Paul, who said after Sunday’s 23-point loss at Oklahoma City that everyone would have to step up in Griffin’s absence, scored 25 points to go along with 13 assists and six rebounds. Jamal Crawford scored 22 points off the bench. J.J. Redick returned after missing three games because of back spasms to score 15 points, Matt Barnes scored 12 and Hedo Turkoglu nine.

Charlie Villanueva led Dallas (35-19) with 26 points off the bench and Dirk Nowitzki scored 18.

This was the final game of the long Grammy road trip, during which the Clippers (34-19) went 3-5.