Clippers’ Chris Paul And Blake Griffin Injured In 98-84 Loss to Blazers

by Pablo MenaApril 26, 2016, 12:42 pmNews >

The Los Angeles Clippers’ locker room was filled with a somber mood following their road loss to the Portland Trail Blazers on Monday, but not just because of the defeat.

Clippers’ Chris Paul And Blake Griffin Injured In 98-84 Loss to Blazers

Chris Paul left the game with a broken hand, and Blake Griffin continues to battle a quad injury.

Al-Farouq Aminu scored a career-high 30 points to lead the Blazers to a 98-84 victory over the Clippers in Game 4 on Monday night to tie the series 2-2.

“It changes a lot,” Blazers guard Damian Lillard said. “Their best player goes down. The guy who makes their offense go. It’s unfortunate. You don’t wish that on anybody, but they still have a really good team.”

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Paul was averaging 26.3 points and 8.3 assists in the first three games of the series, but only managed 16 points in Game 4. He refused to speak to reporters following the game.

Griffin scored 17 points before leaving with under 6 minutes left with his own left quad injury that dates from the regular season. Rivers suggested he was 50-50 for Game 5 in Los Angeles on Wednesday.

“I could feel it,” Griffin said. “Hopefully in the next 24-48 hours you turn a corner and feel better, so I’m not really concentrating on how it felt tonight. That’s kind of expected after you tweak something.”

Both Griffin and Paul will be re-evaluated in Los Angeles on Tuesday. Jeff Green also added 17 off the bench for the Clippers.

CJ McCollum added 19 points for the Blazers, and Mason Plumlee had 14 rebounds and 10 assists.

The Clippers held Lillard to 12 points after he scored 32 in the Blazers’ 96-88 Game 3 victory on Saturday.

Portland jumped out to an early 20-12 lead thanks in part to a pair of game-opening 3-pointers as well as a pair of free throws from Aminu.

Both teams struggled from the field for a good part of the first half, in which they shot a combined 34.5 percent. But Allen Crabbe, who had missed his first 10 3-point attempts in the series, finally hit one to put Portland up 34-26 with just under 6 minutes to go before the break.

The Clippers trailed 47-43 at halftime. The Blazers then gained a 77-68 lead on Maurice Harkless’ follow shot with just 7:27 left and remained ahead from there.

After the game, Rivers said he was not going to dwell on the Clippers’ injuries.

“My job as a coach is to figure out a way of getting us up and ready for Game 5,” he said. “There’s nobody, probably in the league, that’s going to replace Chris Paul so there’s nobody clearly on our team that’s going to do it. As a group everybody pitches in.”

PORTLAND, OR – APRIL 25: C.J. McCollum #3 of the Portland Trail Blazers is pressured by DeAndre Jordan #6 and Chris Paul #3 of the Los Angeles Clippers in the first quarter of Game Four of the Western Conference Quarterfinals during the 2016 NBA Playoffs at the Moda Center on April 25, 2016 in Portland, Oregon.