Blake Griffin on Clippers' new depth: 'It'll help a lot'
Blake Griffin cruised through last season only to turn it on during the playoffs, when he showed exactly how dominant he can be when he goes all out.
He even admitted midway through this past year that he had to take it easier during the first 82 games, channeling back to his rookie season when he says he was exhausted come March. He knew that couldn't happen on a team bound for the postseason.
Griffin took on that mentality as a part of a team that didn't have much (or any) depth. This year's Clippers will be different on that front.
The Clippers added Lance Stephenson, Pablo Prigioni, Wes Johnson, Josh Smith, Cole Aldrich and Paul Pierce this offseason, while retaining Austin Rivers and DeAndre Jordan. They lost only Matt Barnes and Spencer Hawes from their regular rotation. Meanwhile, Chris Paul, Griffin, J.J. Redick and Jamal Crawford are still around. It's no surprise Griffin says the deeper bench is a major plus, via Rowan Kavner of Clippers.com:
Griffin averaged 32.5 minutes per game during 2012-13, the season in reference, his final one playing under Vinny Del Negro. The second unit that year went by another name: A Tribe Called Bench. It included Crawford, Barnes, future star Eric Bledsoe, former star Lamar Odom and Grant Hill. This year's bench may be even better than that one.
If a more productive bench allows Doc Rivers to play to a more Popovichian strategy and we see the Clippers started hover closer to that 30-minutes-a-night marker, maybe we see Griffin play more like past Griffin than current Griffin during the regular season in terms of his recklessness level. He coasted through last year. If he doesn't have to play 35 or 36 minutes every night, maybe that'll be different.
(h/t Clippers.com)
“It’ll help a lot,” Griffin said. “My third season in the league when we had that unbelievable bench, I think I dropped to like 32 minutes a game in the regular season…You definitely feel fresher toward the end, but you have to find that right balance of not holding back too much, being able to give everything. Having an elite bench is going to help us tremendously, especially come playoff time.”
