Jamal Crawford/Photo courtesy of Los Angeles Clippers
Jamal Crawford scored 15 points and Chris Paul scored 12, but the Golden State Warriors took a 63-53 into the locker room at halftime Saturday at Staples Center.
Klay Thompson scored 18 to lead the Warriors and Steph Curry scored 13.
J.J. Redick/Staff photo by John McCoy
Clippers shooting guard J.J. Redick has been selected to participate in the 3-point contest during All-Star weekend in Toronto. The event will take place on Feb. 13 at Air Canada Centre, the day before the game is played there.
Redick leads the NBA in field-goal percentage from beyond the arc at 48.2 percent (120 of 249).
Joining Redick in the eight-man field will be Steph Curry and Klay Thompson of Golden State, Chris Bosh of Miami, James Harden of Houston, Kyle Lowry of Toronto, Devin Booker of Phoenix and Khris Middleton of Milwaukee.
Curry leads the NBA in made 3-pointers with 232. He is the defending champion of this contest.
Chris Paul/Photo courtesy of Los Angeles Clippers
The starters for the upcoming All-Star game were announced Thursday and nary a Clipper was among them.
Chris Paul finished third among guards in the Western Conference with 624,334 votes. Blake Griffin, who hasn’t played since Christmas night, and DeAndre Jordan finished sixth and 11th among frontcourt players with 651,860 and 269,427 votes, respectively.
The Western Conference starters for the Feb. 14 in Toronto will be Kobe Bryant of the Lakers, Steph Curry of the Warriors, Keven Durant of Oklahoma City, Kawhi Leonard of San Antonio and Russell Westbrook of Oklahoma City.
The Eastern Conference starters will be Carmelo Anthony of the Knicks, Paul George of Indiana, LeBron James of Cleveland, Kyle Lowry of Toronto and Dwyane Wade of Miami.
Bryant had the most votes of any player, tallying 1,891,614. Curry was next with 1,604,325 and then James with 1,089,206. They were only three with at least a million votes.
Chris Paul/Photo courtesy of Los Angeles Clippers
Blake Griffin, DeAndre Jordan and Chris Paul on Monday were among 30 players named as finalists for roster spots on the 2016 U.S. Olympic team. Only 12 are available.
Paul played in the 2008 and 2012 teams that won gold medals; both went 8-0 in Beijing and London. Paul has averaged 8.1 points, 4.6 assists, 3.1 rebounds and 2.4 steals in 16 games.
Griffin made the 2012 team, but was forced to pull out because of an injury.
All three players participated in the 2015 USA National team mini-camp in July in Las Vegas.
The Golden State Warriors have five players as finalists – Steph Curry, Draymond Green, Harrison Barnes, Klay Thompson and Andre Iguodala. The only other team with at least three is the Cleveland Cavaliers with LeBron James, Kevin Love and Kyrie Irving.
Chris Paul/Photo courtesy of Los Angeles Clippers
Chris Paul is third among backcourt players in the Western Conference and Blake Griffin is fifth among frontcourt players in the most recent tabulation of All-Star votes released Thursday by the NBA.
Paul has 268,672 votes and sits behind Golden State’s Steph Curry (925,789) and Russell Westbrook (479,512) of the Thunder.
Klay Thompson (267,602) is fourth behind Paul.
Griffin, who has missed the past six games with a partially torn left quad tendon, has 298, 212 votes. He sits behind the Lakers’ Kobe Bryant (1,262,118), Kevin Durant (616,096) of the Thunder, Draymond Green (332,223) of Golden State and Kawhi Leonard (330,929) of San Antonio.
DeAndre Jordan is 14th with 91,186 votes.
Bryant leads all players in votes.
Josh Smith of the Clippers fouls the Warriors’ Festus Ezeli during Thursday’s game/Staff photo by Hans Gutknecht
– It’s true the Clippers were playing a great team in the Warriors, so the problem wasn’t so much losing a 23-point second-quarter lead. Rather, it was being outscored 25-8 over the final 5:54. The Clippers were up 109-99 at that point and scored just eight more points. That can’t happen.
– In the amazing statistic department, the Warriors shot 56.7 from 3-point range, making 17 of 30. Moreover, they made 8 of 9 in the decisive fourth quarter. That’s 88.9 percent. Seriously?
– Except for shooting for a better free-throw percentage than usual – he was 5 of 8 – DeAndre Jordan was almost a non-factor in this one. He scored just nine points on four field-goal attempts, pulled down 10 rebounds and had zero blocks. He’s averaging 12.6 rebounds – down from 15.0 a season ago – and 2.7 blocks.
– When you shoot 50 percent from the field overall and 44.8 (13 of 29) like the Clippers did, you expect to win. The Clippers lost, and by now they might be wondering how the heck they are ever going to beat the Warriors. The Clippers led them by 10 in the fourth quarter at their place Nov. 4 and lost by four. The Clippers led them twice by 23 points in the second quarter of this one and, again, by 10 midway through the fourth – and lost both times.
– If we don’t take the time to tip our cap to Golden State’s Steph Curry, we wouldn’t be doing our job. Curry scored 40 points after scoring just three in the first quarter because he took two early fouls. He scored 13 of his points in the fourth. He also had three steals. To top it off, the 6-foot-3 guard led everyone with 11 rebounds. Yes, he had seven turnovers. So he’s not perfect.