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Towns And Wolves Battle Back To Defeat Clippers

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Struggles were to be expected for the Los Angeles Clippers as they entered their first game without both Chris Paul and Blake Griffin Thursday.

Paul is expected to be out 6-8 weeks after having surgery on his left thumb today but the Clippers expect Griffin to return soon after having knee surgery in December.

In the meantime the Minnesota Timberwolves don’t care how hampered Los Angeles is, they want to get some wins of their own after a rough start to the season.

After a rough start of things for the Clippers who seemed out of sorts early in the first without their leader Chris Paul things began to turn around thanks to the energetic play of Center DeAndre Jordan. Jordan showed some great skill in the low block hitting some hook shots and posting up reigning Rookie of the Year Karl-Anthony Towns.

These were moves the big man didn’t have in his arsenal even a year ago and it seems the recent work he has been putting in with new Clippers consultant Kevin Garnett is paying off. It certainly did for him tonight as he finished with a career-high 29 points and 16 rebounds.

The Clippers needed another starter to pack a scoring punch in order to win and they got that from Austin Rivers. Rivers was able to slice through Timberwolves defenders on his way to the hoop on many occasions. On one in particular he put Nemanja Bjelica on skates.

Rivers closed out his night with 20 points being a great compliment to Jordan.

The Clippers really have needed scoring as of late because without Paul and Griffin the team was expecting 6th man Jamal Crawford to step up. He hasn’t. After shooting 0-5 against the Thunder last game Crawford followed that up with another cold night scoring just 7 points and going 3-14 from the field. If the Clippers want to survive this stretch without two of their stars they will need Crawford to heat up and start hitting some buckets off the bench.

On the other end Karl-Anthony Towns had himself a night. Towns was clutch for his team down the stretch and closed out his night with a very impressive double-double notching 37 points with 12 rebounds and 5 assists.

In the end Towns and his 15 points in the fourth quarter snapped the Clippers 7-game win streak in a tight 104-101 victory.

This loss was tough for the Clippers who held the lead for the majority of the game and gave it away right at the end as they couldn’t hold on.

Thanks for reading along Clipper Nation. Here’s to getting another winning streak started on the road.

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