The Defense
Griffin is still growing defensively, though he’s far from the sieve his critics imagine him to be. He’s mobile and alert, essential qualities for Doc Rivers’s strongside overload scheme, and he can use his speed to contain pick-and-rolls in a variety of styles. Griffin generally tries hard, which is half the battle on defense. Bigger guys can still give him issues on the block, and genetics have ensured Griffin will never be a scary rim protector who deters drivers.
He has gotten better. The Clips rank eighth overall in points allowed per possession, and they’ve been a hair stingier than their overall average with the Griffin-Jordan duo on the floor, per NBA.com. That’s an important change from last season, when the team’s bench propped up starter-heavy units that couldn’t defend well enough.
The young L.A. bigs aren’t stoppers, separately or together. Teams have shot nearly 52 percent on close shots when Jordan is near both the shooter and the rim, a below-average mark for a big man playing heavy minutes, per SportVU data. (In fairness to Jordan, this number has been gradually coming down from about 60 percent over the last six weeks.) Opponents have hit 62.6 percent of shots in the restricted area against the Clippers, the seventh-worst mark among all team defenses, per NBA.com.
Jordan is still occasionally late on weakside rotations and can space out at bad times. The two bigs still have blips of miscommunication that result in one opposing big man being left wide open. The Clippers have fallen off a bit defensively since Paul’s injury, and while the falloff doesn’t amount to much in terms of L.A.’s place in the league’s defensive hierarchy, it’s worth monitoring, considering the blah competition. The Clips might be 9-3 without Paul, but they’re just 3-2 in that stretch against teams currently at .500 or better, and two of those wins came against teams — Chicago and Toronto — that are just two games over .500 combined.
The Clippers, like basically every team, have some issues to sort out. But this non-Paul stretch has been a sort of second coming-out party for Griffin — the very loud announcement of his maturation as a player. The critics should take note.