Arash Markazi, ESPN Senior Writer 9y

Clippers 126, Kings 99: Four straight wins

LOS ANGELES -- When Blake Griffin was ruled out for 4-6 weeks with a staph infection in his right elbow two weeks ago, a popular question in the immediate aftermath was this: Are the Clippers even going to make the playoffs?

It wasn’t as crazy a query as it may sound now after the Clippers won their fourth straight game on Saturday, beating the Sacramento Kings 126-99.

Two weeks ago the Clippers had just lost four straight for the first time since Doc Rivers took over as coach and had gotten blown out in their previous three. They looked completely lost heading into a brutal stretch against the best teams in the West and were now without their best player after sliding all the way down to the seventh seed.

But something interesting happened when the Clippers boarded their flight to Dallas from Oklahoma City and Griffin got on a separate flight back to Los Angeles for surgery. The Clippers realized that they could no longer afford to go through the motions of the season the same way they had through the first half of the season.

The Clippers knew going into this season that they would only be judged by what they did in the playoffs no matter how good they were during the regular season. They won over 55 games the last two seasons and back-to-back division titles and were bounced out in the first and second rounds. So they were playing just well enough to get in but after falling all the way down to the seventh seed and without Griffin in the lineup for the foreseeable future they knew simply doing what they had done wasn’t going to cut it.

“We knew it was going to take a total team effort,” said DeAndre Jordan, who had 11 points and 15 rebounds in 20 minutes on Saturday. “Everyone had to play better.”

Over the last four games the Clippers have played with more energy than they did before, realizing that it’s going to take more than one player to pick up the slack from Griffin’s loss. But Rivers wasn’t ready to call Griffin’s absence a momentary blessing in disguise.

“I’m not going there,” Rivers said. “It’s never a good thing when one of your good players gets hurt. I’ve always said that. It may be good for other people, so what you look for is what is the good thing you get out of it.”

The Clippers are now essentially tied for the fourth seed with Portland and are a half game behind Houston for the third-best record in the West and are also second in the league in average point differential after Saturday’s blowout. In short, life without Griffin has been just fine for the Clippers. Now the key is sustaining it until he returns and finding a way to build on it when he returns next month.

“We’ll figure that out when Blake gets back,” Rivers said. “Hopefully your team gets a little tougher mentally because they have to survive without a key guy. Hopefully a couple guys get into a rhythm and start playing better, build their confidence. That’s what you hope for when you lose a key guy. I hope that’s what will happen.”

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