Blake Griffin Scores NBA Season High 47 Points In Clippers’ 114-107 Win Over Pacers

Blake Griffin has made waves this season with his dunks and spectacular athletic moves, but we forget that he’s pretty skilled too. Thankfully, Griffin provided us with as good a reminder of that fact as we’ll get all season, torching a very good Indiana defense (eighth in the NBA) for 47 points in a 114-107 win.

Griffin had 28 of those points in the first half, but after taking most of the third period off, he stepped up when it mattered in the fourth quarter, putting the game away with a missed up and under shot that he promptly rebounded and put back in while drawing a foul. That was just one play that caused the Clippers superb announcing team of Ralph Lawler and Mike Smith to gush like a little schoolgirl over their good fortune. Honestly, who can blame them?

The truly amazing part about the performance is that Griffin did it without his trademark slams. He only dunked the ball once the entire game, and instead was beating the Pacers with quick moves and elusiveness underneath the basket. He went around the Pacer defenders, not through them. When his drive was cut off, which wasn’t often, Griffin was nailing his bank shot, which was become a staple in this game. That is how you score 47 points while taking just 24 shot attempts. Indiana ran many defenders his way, whether they were big (Tyler Hansbrough, Jeff Foster) or small (James Posey), and it didn’t matter. Griffin just had all his go-to moves going.

Like this one.

Indiana didn’t even play that badly. They were just piked apart by a buzzsaw. Clips Nation writes that Griffin truly lifted the rest of the Clippers to victory for the first time all season, and that might be right.