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The first run of “Lob City” may not have ended the way some within the Los Angeles Clippers organization would have liked but everyone understands its still a work in progress. With half the roster up for new contracts in the coming weeks and months, there’s also a good chance the team will have new look next season.

Before we look too far into the future though, let's look back at the Clippers’ roster last season and see how it graded out and how it will look moving forward.

We start off the grades with Trey Thompkins and Travis Leslie, the two rookies the Clippers drafted out of Georgia in the second round last year. Thompkins and Leslie were born two months apart, were selected 10 picks apart and sat one locker apart from each other. They had so much common, they even shared the same lack of playing time this season.

Trey Thompkins

2011-12 contributions: No one on the Clippers was a bigger consistent cheerleader on the bench than Thompkins, who could usually be found draped over the back of DeAndre Jordan or another teammate after a big dunk late in the game. He appeared in 23 games during the season and averaged 2.4 points and 1.0 rebounds in 5.0 minutes. His best game was during the Clippers’ 107-81 win over the Washington Wizards on Feb. 4 when he had 2 points, 7 rebounds and 1 blocked shot while playing the entire fourth quarter.

2012-13 prediction: Thompkins figures into the Clippers’ future plans fairly prominently as general manager Neil Olshey said the team would be in the market for a “stretch four” and Thompkins fits the bill in case they can't find one in free agency. He’s a versatile forward who can play inside and outside. He has a nice jump shot and was a consistent three-point shooter in practice. If the Clippers can’t land someone outside the current roster to fill that "stretch four" position, Thompkins could see himself in the regular rotation next season.

Grade: Incomplete

Travis Leslie

2011-12 contributions: It was a difficult rookie season for Leslie, who only played in 10 games and was assigned to the Bakersfield Jam of the NBA Development League for two separate stints before returning to the Clippers at the end of the season. While he didn’t want to be away from his teammates, Leslie made the most of his time in Bakersfield, averaging 12.5 points, 3.5 rebounds and 1.5 assists in 21.0 minutes. While with the Clippers, Leslie only averaged 1.4 points, 0.9 rebounds and 0.5 assists in 4.5 minutes.

2012-13 prediction: Depending on what the Clippers do in free agency, it’s hard to see Leslie getting much more time in the rotation next season. He’s an athletic, albeit undersized shooting guard, who can finish at the basket and has been known to put on highlight reel plays in practice on par with Eric Bledsoe, but the Clippers are already two-deep at both guard positions. Leslie isn’t going anywhere but barring injuries or a trade, he’ll probably be spending a good amount of time on the bench again next season.

Grade: Incomplete

The Los Angeles Clippers are going to get swept by the San Antonio Spurs if Chris Paul keeps playing the way he has so far this series.

That’s the truth of the matter.

The Clippers got improved play from Blake Griffin in Game 2 on Thursday night and have received continued productive play from a few of their role players against the Spurs, but it hasn’t been nearly enough.

San Antonio is too good, too complete a team. And the Clippers are too flawed, especially without a full-strength Paul in their arsenal.

The question that will determine how soon their season ends, then, is whether it’s possible Paul can be at full strength by Saturday afternoon’s Game 3 in Los Angeles. He’s still being bothered by the strained right hip flexor he suffered in Game 5 of the Clippers’ first-round series against the Memphis Grizzlies.

Spurs guard Tony Parker said in his postgame news conference Thursday that he and his teammates expect a better Paul in L.A.

“I’m sure he’s going to come back stronger in Game 3,” Parker said. “I’m sure he’s going to bounce back.”

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LOS ANGELES -- Here are Chris Paul and Blake Griffin of the Los Angeles Clippers following their 90-88 loss to the Memphis Grizzlies in Game 6 of their first-round series on Friday at the Staples Center.

Paul, who came to the podium first, downplayed the severity of his hip flexor injury but admitted that he didn't feel 100 percent at any point in the game. He also praised the play of reserve guard Eric Bledsoe and talked about the only other Game 7 he's played in his career, a May 2008 loss to the San Antonio Spurs.



Griffin said there were a few things he can do normally that he noticed he couldn't do with the knee injury on Friday. He also talked about the physicality of the series with some different perspective than he's spoken from so far.

LOS ANGELES -- Eric Bledsoe's coach, Vinny Del Negro, displayed a lot of confidence in the young point guard Saturday afternoon.

He left Bledsoe on the court in the crucial final minutes of Game 3 between the Los Angeles Clippers and Memphis Grizzlies. And Bledsoe repaid him some with his electric play, producing an and-one, two assists and other sparkplug-style moves he's made his signature this season.

Then the 22-year-old stepped to the free-throw line twice in the final minute and missed three of his four attempts, nearly giving Memphis the win as the Grizzlies put together a furious final-seconds comeback on the strength of two Rudy Gay 3-pointers.

After the game, which the Clippers won, 87-86, Del Negro defended Bledsoe's late play by pointing out the positives -- like his speed defending Mike Conley -- and emphasizing them over the negatives, like his free-throw misses off the inbounds passes.

Bledsoe similarly said he wasn't too worried about the errors.

"Today they just didn't fall," he said after Saturday's game. "I can't hang my head over it. My teammates picked me up."

He did point out that he didn't have much time to rebound mentally. Typically, teams call full timeouts in big situations like those late in the game, but Reggie Evans pulled down the rebound after Bledsoe's first miss and then, after a 20-second timeout in between, the Grizzlies went right down to the opposite end after his second and third misses.

"Normally they call a timeout and set up and all that, but I didn't really have time to do that," Bledsoe said. "I had to regroup fast and not think about it, because Rudy had hit two big threes just before that."

The Grizzlies didn't have a timeout left in the final seconds, so they had a set play ready after Bledsoe's second trip to the line. Luckily for the Clippers, all it produced was a Gay 3-point attempt, which didn't go in.

LOS ANGELES -- Here's Los Angeles Clippers coach Vinny Del Negro talking to the media following his team's 87-86 comeback win over the Memphis Grizzlies in Game 3 of the team's opening-round series of the NBA playoffs.

He addresses his decision to keep Eric Bledsoe in the game late although he struggled at the free-throw line, the team-wide emphasis to match Memphis' physical play and the changes the Clippers made at halftime to combat some of their early issues.

We won't know for around two weeks whether the Los Angeles Clippers' decision to rest Chris Paul and his injured groin in Wednesday's regular-season finale against the New York Knicks was savvy or stupid, but we do know one thing right away.

It was risky -- very risky.

In sitting Paul and losing 99-93 to the Knicks at Madison Square Garden, the Clippers have now handed over control for home-court advantage in the first round of the NBA playoffs to their opponents, the Memphis Grizzlies. As long as the Grizzlies win at home against Orlando on Thursday -- likely considering the Magic are already locked into the No. 6 seed in the East -- the Clippers are going to open up the playoffs in Memphis.

If they go on to suffer, say, a six- or seven-game series loss at the hands of the Grizzlies, the Clippers could have Wednesday's loss to blame. The Knicks didn't even play their starters late in the game, in a clear indication they didn't need to win. There's a definite argument they'd be better be off losing and taking the No. 8 seed and a first-round matchup with Chicago rather than the No. 7 seed and a date with Miami.

But the Clippers did need to win. Heck, they needed to win each of their last three road games at Phoenix, Atlanta and New York, or at least one of the three, and they couldn't win any. They finished the regular season with an under-.500 record on the road -- 16 wins and 17 losses.

So it'll be hard to feel confident in their chances against the Grizzlies if they indeed have to start out on the road. They beat Memphis twice this year, but both wins came at Staples Center. The Clippers lost by nine in Memphis earlier this month.

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Blake Griffin and Chris Paul combined to score only 27 points, but the Los Angeles Clippers still pulled off a 93-85 win on the road against the Sacramento Kings on Thursday night.

Griffin and Paul's totals were the fifth-lowest the two have posted in a game this season and the lowest of any game all season where they both reached their season average for minutes. The other four games where Paul and Griffin scored 20, 23, 23 and 25 were all double-digit margin contests.

So how did the Clippers beat the Kings in a close game without their stars? Simple: Randy Foye, Caron Butler and Eric Bledsoe.

The perimeter trio combined to score 47 points on 50 percent shooting, tiding the Clippers over while Paul struggled through an awful shooting night and Griffin struggled with DeMarcus Cousins' physicality. It's not the most high-profile tandem, but all three have been effective at times this season. When they're effective together -- with Nick Young a possibility, too -- the Clippers can afford less-than-stellar performances from their stars.

Of course, Thursday's game was against Sacramento, one of the five or six worst teams in the NBA. But the Kings aren't terrible at home -- entering the game, they were above .500 at Power Balance Pavilion, with home wins against three probable playoff teams last month, and a home win over Oklahoma City the month before that.

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There have been six mainstays in the Los Angeles Clippers rotation since the 2011-2012 season started on Christmas Day: Chris Paul, Mo Williams, Randy Foye, Caron Butler, Blake Griffin, DeAndre Jordan.

Those six started the season with the team and continue playing in most every game. Then there are the five players the team has added into the mix since then, either by trade, free-agent signing or return from injury. In order, those are Reggie Evans, Kenyon Martin, Eric Bledsoe, Bobby Simmons and, after making his debut in Sunday's win over the Detroit Pistons, now Nick Young.

And that doesn't count mid-year additions Solomon Jones and Courtney Fortson, who both played significant minutes with the Clips before getting released and landing elsewhere.

That's a lot of new pieces to add to a puzzle, especially considering they've all joined the team over an 84-day period in which the Clippers have played 44 games. And, to make matters worse, they've all been separate additions, joining the team weeks apart from each other.

How have the Clippers done it?

"It's not easy," coach Vinny Del Negro said before Sunday's game when asked that question. "We have to do a better job incorporating and getting a feel for guys, and that's tough. But that's the situation we're in.

"You've just gotta work together a little bit better and connect a little bit more as a team, because we're incorporating all types of players and personalities and you have to manage all that."

Blake Griffin put it a little more simply.

"It feels like we add a new piece every month or so," Griffin said after Sunday's game. "It's like every month you're forced to add someone new. I don't want to say it disrupts things, but it changes things.

"We're not used to playing with a guy like Nick. He's been in L.A. for two days now, I think."

Young definitely changed the shape of Sunday's game. Because he logged 29 minutes in the victory, Williams played only 24 -- the shortest time he's been on the court in almost a month. And Bledsoe, who had played in each of the Clippers' last 15 games, didn't play at all.

That was similar to what happened when the Clippers added Simmons at the end of February. Ryan Gomes has only played three minutes since Simmons was signed.

Evans also experienced a slight downturn in minutes right after Martin made his debut in early February.

Del Negro said Sunday he tries to focus on the "rhythm of certain lineups," and that makes sense. But there obviously wasn't going to be much rhythm with Young and the rest of the players on the floor during his 29 minutes against the Pistons.

But, as Griffin said, the Clippers can help ease the transitioning process if they turn up the energy, like they did in the fourth quarter and overtime period Sunday, when they outscored Detroit 30-18. Young was on the floor for 16 of 17 possible minutes in that stretch.

Said Griffin: "The thing is, if we play hard, we can kind of erase or make up for those mistakes that we make because we're new."

Clippers (25-18) vs. Detroit Pistons (16-28) at Staples Center, 12:30 p.m. PT

Five storylines to track:

1. Back-to-back: The Clippers play back-to-back afternoon games at Staples Center this weekend, and after beating the Houston Rockets on Saturday they will try to do something they haven’t done in a month: win consecutive games. The last time the Clippers won consecutive games was Feb. 15-16 against Washington and Portland. They haven’t won back-to-back games at home since January. This is the Clippers’ 11th set of back-to-back games this season; they own a 9-3 record in the first game and a 5-5 record in the second game. In the second game of back-to-backs, the Clippers have scored on average nearly 8 points fewer than in the first game.

2. Close call: After pulling out close games to start the season when they jumped out to a 19-9 record, the Clippers had fallen into a funk where they simply could not close out games. Since Chauncey Billups went down for the season, the Clippers were 9-11 and had lost nine of 14 games, and had an 8-8 record in games decided by five points or fewer. The Clippers were able to reverse that trend Saturday against the Rockets by coming back from six points down with less than three minutes left to win 95-91. “It was a grind out win for us,” Clippers coach Vinny Del Negro said. “We had to make plays down the stretch and we didn’t shoot the ball particularly well which put a lot of pressure on us but Chris [Paul] made some big plays down the stretch.”

3. Young debut: After sitting out Saturday’s game, Nick Young could make his debut for the Clippers on Sunday. Young was traded to the Clippers on Thursday for a future second round pick and Brian Cook and figures to be an integral part of the team as they make a push for the playoffs. Young, who was averaging 16.6 points and 2.4 rebounds in 32 starts this season for the Washington Wizards, has tried to pick up on the offense since arriving at Staples Center and talking with Chris Paul and Chauncey Billups before Saturday's game. “I want to be somebody that can take the pressure off Chris and Blake [Griffin],” Young said. “With me knocking down shots, the lane will open up.”

4. Billups on the bench: Chauncey Billups made his return to the Clippers' bench on Saturday and his impact was felt quickly in the locker room and on the sidelines. While Billups will not be able to play again this season, he sat alongside the coaches and spent much of the game talking to Paul, Eric Bledsoe and Mo Williams. Paul even credited Billups with helping him take over the game in the final three minutes to lead the Clippers to the win. “He told me, ‘C, we need you to score, we need you to be more offensive-minded’ and I needed that,” Paul said. “I usually call him after every game and we talk about what he saw. It’s one thing to talk to him after the game when you can’t change what happens but now he’s here at the game and can help us.”

5. Stop complaining: A good portion of the Clippers’ hour long closed door meeting on Thursday had to do with the team’s incessant need to complain to officials after virtually every call. It has caused the Clippers to lose points, patience and games. Against the Rockets on Saturday, the Clippers were better than they have been in the past and it may have helped them get a call or two their way as they came back from six points down with less than three minutes left. “If you just play, you'll get more calls," Clippers guard Randy Foye said. “If you don't complain, you'll get more calls.”

Clippers head coach Vinny Del Negro and general manager Neil Olshey addressed the media about the team's deadline-day trade for Nick Young prior to Thursday's game against Phoenix. We posted video from Del Negro's press conference earlier; here is video from Olshey's, followed by selected quotes from both men's meeting with the media, with Del Negro's comments up first and Olshey's second.

(Del Negro, on how the deal came together in a last-second fashion) I wouldn't say it's last-second. It's something that Neil's been working on and we've been discussing, but it just kind of came together yesterday a little bit and moreso this morning, when the whole deal came together. Neil worked hard and got it organized and it was something that I supported and (team president) Andy (Roeser) supported and Mr. (Donald) Sterling supported. We just felt like it was the right thing to do right now. We gave up a second-round pick...It gets us a big two-guard.

(On his impressions of Young) He just gives us more size in the backcourt. He's a proven scorer in the league and he's explosive. He can take you inside or outside. How it's all going to come together with the chemistry of the team and everything, time will tell. But just to get a player of his caliber on the roster, is very positive and I'm looking forward to working with him. I think he will give us some help.

(On whether he'll start) Yeah. I don't know how it's all going to come together, the timing of it in terms of when and how. He's gotta learn the plays and that takes time, and there's not much practice time. We'll have to do that between games and just make it work as quick as possible. The chemistry of a team and rhythm of a team is very important, and I have a lot of confidence in all our guys. Randy (Foye)'s done a great job for us and Eric Bledsoe's coming into his own a little bit -- he's feeling better health-wise -- and he's getting more of an opportunity. Obviously we lost Chauncey (Billups), so we'll probably go back to more of that rotation with Nick.

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LOS ANGELES -- Eric Bledsoe picked a funny time to have his best game of the 2011-2012 NBA season, with rumors swirling about him on the eve of the league's pushed-back trade deadline.

But the second-year guard's game on Wednesday against Atlanta -- 14 points, four steals and two blocks in 17 minutes -- is perfectly representative of the value he can provide the Clippers for the rest of the season and in the future. It's also representative of why he's the only tradable asset the team has left following December's deal for Chris Paul.

Now, the question is what the Clippers will do with him. If they make any sort of trade by noon PT on Thursday, it's likely he'll be involved. If they don't, then coach Vinny Del Negro will need to find a consistent role for him to fill for the remaining 25 games.

They don't want to trade him, for the same reasons they didn't want to trade him to New Orleans in the deal for Paul. He's talented, he's young, he's cheap and he plays a premium position. He also provides insurance if Mo Williams opts out of his contract next summer or Paul doesn't re-sign the summer after that.

But Bledsoe has still only logged double-digit minutes in three games this year, and none of them have been consecutively. But he has made a significant impact in all three, like Sunday's loss to Golden State, when he and Reggie Evans almost brought the Clippers back by themselves in the fourth quarter.

The problem is that Bledsoe was able to play 17 minutes only because Del Negro took it easy on Paul and played him the fewest minutes he has logged in a month and had Randy Foye on the floor for only 19 minutes, too.

"It's not always that easy," Del Negro said after Wednesday's game. "Tonight, it worked out with the minutes that he probably deserves, but it's hard managing those things, in terms of minutes and who's going well."

Bledsoe said Wednesday that his role "never changes" -- he's still asked to do the same stuff, just for different amounts of time. But he's clearly being under-utilized, especially now as he's proving he's getting closer and closer to 100 percent healthy.

It's a matter of value. Is it worth more to the Clippers to deal him now for a piece that could help them in their playoff run in two months, or is it worth more to continue to have Bledsoe as an asset while playing him for 15 minutes a game for the next six weeks?

The answer's probably the latter.

On a night when Blake Griffin looked noticeably winded, his teammates came through, providing the necessary fuel.

Midway through the fourth, Griffin stayed in the backcourt while his teammates ran a fastbreak, a rare site to observers of this team. A possession later, he turned it over.

In the end, Griffin finished with 14 points in 38 minutes, going 5-for-14 from the field. He didn’t take a single shot in the fourth quarter and only had two attempts in overtime. It was his third straight sub-par performance.

“He’s fine. He’s fine,” said head coach Vinny Del Negro, in response to the question of whether Blake had, like DeAndre Jordan, fallen ill.

“Yeah, it’s nice to win. This is a great team,” said Griffin, after the game. “This is a win we needed, especially coming off of a loss. You don’t want to lose two in a row, so it was relieving.”

When asked about his energy level at the end, said Griffin, “tired, very tired. But that’s crunch time and when all our guys stepped up and everybody else just kind of falls in line.”

Step up they did. Randy Foye scored 15 points on 6-of-7 shooting and Mo Williams added in 14 off the bench in 36 minutes. But it was Chris Paul who really led the charge with Blake not himself. The star guard took the game over down the stretch, putting the team’s fate in his own hands.

He stepped back on Kyle Lowry with 25 seconds remaining in the fourth, hitting a jumper and putting his team up 97-96. Yet on the final possession of regulation, the Rockets changed their strategy, assigning the 6-7 Courtney Lee to guard Paul. Lee hounded Paul into the corner, not biting on the same move that had shook Lowry seconds before, forcing him into a fallaway attempt after the buzzer. The shot went in, testament to Paul’s abilities, but it did not count.

In overtime, Paul was later again stopped by Lee, trying the same move, with the ball going off of Lee’s leg. He then changed strategies.

With 1:22 left in overtime, Paul dribbled between his legs and dribbled straight past the hounding Lee, finding Blake Griffin underneath the hoop for the slam, the latter’s only basket in both the fourth quarter and overtime. A possession later, Paul hit a jumper over Lee, giving the Clippers the lead for good, 104-103, with just 50 seconds remaining. A Paul free throw at the end, with five seconds left, iced it.

“I pulled back like twice on Courtney and it hit his foot and went out. I was taking a bad angle, so I figured, stop pulling back and go by him and score,” said Paul after the game, with regards to his final sequences against Lee.
To Griffin’s credit, he battled valiantly against Houston Rockets power forward Luis Scola, with things getting extremely physical at certain points.

“He’s a good player and teams play physical. I just try to match that, but at the same time, not overdo it because then, that’s when you get offensive foul calls and stuff like that,” said Griffin on his battle with Scola.

At two separate points in the last three minutes of the fourth, Griffin backed down Scola in the paint, only to have both players fall down.

In the end though, with help from his teammates, it was Griffin winning the war, as he provided the demoralizing dunk late in overtime off the feed from Paul. It seemed to take every last ounce of energy he had, but on this night, it was enough to get the victory.

Clippers (19-10) vs. Golden State Warriors (11-17) at Oracle Arena, 7:30 p.m. PT

Five storylines to track:

1. Road warriors: Unlike their Staples Center neighbors, the Clippers have shown they can win on the road this season. The Clippers are 8-6 on the road this season and have won 7 of their last 9 games away from home after starting 1-4. The Clippers have never finished with an above .500 record on the road as a franchise and can actually equal their road win total from last season (9-32) with a win against Golden State on Monday. Not only have the Clippers been winning on the road, they’ve been coming back from big deficits to do so. Against Portland last week the Clippers overcame an 18-point deficit to defeat the Trail Blazers 74-71. The Clippers rally in Portland was the team’s fifth road win since Jan. 29 in which they have comeback from a deficit of 10 or more points. Prior to this season, the Clippers' last four road wins in which they overcame a double-digit deficit came in four different years.

2. The 20/20 Club: Blake Griffin recorded the first 20-point, 20-rebound game of his career against the San Antonio Spurs on Sunday when he had 22 points and 20 rebounds before fouling out. Griffin is the only player in the NBA this season averaging over 21 points, 11.0 rebounds and 3 assists. Griffin is also shooting 53.4% from the floor. Since the 1990-91 season, only four different players have finished a season with those averages and shooting percentage. Since the introduction of the shot clock in 1954 only 8 different players have finishes a season with those numbers and Griffin, 22, is the youngest to accomplish the feat so far.

3. Rebounding back: For the first time this season, the Clippers are in the top half of the NBA (14) in rebounding after being ranked last for much of the first month of the season. The biggest difference has been the return of Reggie Evans, who missed the first five games of the season with an off-season injury, and the signing of Kenyon Martin, who made his debut Feb. 8. Suddenly the Clippers no longer need to depend on Brian Cook and Solomon Jones for minutes when Blake Griffin and DeAndre Jordan need rest. In fact, since Evans’ return and Martin’s signing Jones has been cut and Cook hardly sees the floor anymore. The Clippers have outrebounded their opponents in their last nine games and have had more offensive rebounds in seven straight games. That should continue Monday night as the Warriors were outrebounded 45-31 Saturday against the Memphis Grizzlies. Golden State's minus-4.46 rebounding differential is one of the worst in the league while the Clippers' plus-3.14 margin is one of the best in the league.

4. Bounce back game: Chris Paul called his costly turnover at the end of regulation against the Spurs on Saturday the worst play of his career. He also promised it would never happen again and the Clippers for the most part simply chalked up the loss as another learning experience. “Obviously, disappointing and frustrating and all that, but there’s no time for a pity party here,” Clippers coach Vinny Del Negro said Sunday afternoon. “We let one slip away yesterday and we’ve also been able to win some games down the stretch this year. You have to learn from it, you have to get better and you have to work.” The good news for the Clippers is they usually respond well after a loss. They have yet to lose back-to-back games in 2012. The last time the Clippers lost two in a row was on Dec. 28 and 30 at the start of this season.

5. Bledsoe's return: As disappointed as the Clippers were in not landing free agent guard J.R. Smith, who ended up signing with the New York Knicks, the Clippers got a pleasant surprise on Saturday with the play of second year guard Eric Bledsoe, who got his first extended minutes of the season after only playing a total of 19 minutes while recovering from off-season knee surgery. While he didn’t score, Bledsoe was a playmaker on the court in the third quarter, leading the Clippers to a 17-3 run to cut the Spurs’ 15-point lead and finishing with a team-high +14 in the +/- department. His between the legs pass to Griffin for a dunk on a fast break during that run could be sign of things to come in the future when he gets on the court.

Five minutes and 10 seconds into the second half of Saturday's game between the Los Angeles Clippers and San Antonio Spurs, Clippers coach Vinny Del Negro made his best decision of the day -- which isn't necessarily saying much, because he made a couple 0f questionable ones too.

The move: He pulled Chris Paul in favor of Eric Bledsoe, notable for three reasons.

For one, Paul rarely exits a game so soon after the start of either half. For another, Mo Williams was available from the bench but passed over by Del Negro. And, for three, it was in favor of Bledsoe, a guy who had played only 19 minutes this season before the move, mostly because of injury but also because of ineffectiveness since his return on Jan. 30.

But Paul was struggling to keep up with Tony Parker defensively, and Del Negro felt Bledsoe could do it better than his starting point guard could.

He was right. Over the next six minutes and nine seconds -- Bledsoe's only time on the court all game -- the Clippers made a 17-3 run, limiting Parker and the Spurs' offense and turning their own on through the fast break.

He didn't score, missing his only shot attempt, but his two assists and three rebounds were accurate measures of his effectiveness this day.

"I thought Eric Bledsoe came in and got us back into it," Del Negro said afterward, adding that Paul channeled Bledsoe's aggressiveness when he came back into the game, keeping the court open.

The Clips were down 65-50 when Bledsoe entered and were down only 68-67 when he exited. His +14 plus-minus was the best of any Clipper on Saturday and the second-best of any player on the court after Parker's +15.

"That's just how I play," Bledsoe said Saturday when asked about the influence his insertion into the lineup had. "I come up with the loose balls, hustle plays. I get more hustle plays than a lot of people."

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LOS ANGELES -- Here's Clippers coach Vinny Del Negro addressing the media after Wednesday's 102-84 win over the Washington Wizards.

He addressed his team's first half offensive struggles, the energetic play of rebounders Kenyon Martin and Reggie Evans and Caron Butler's 5-of-7 shooting from 3-point range, as well as point guard Eric Bledsoe's status as he continues to return from injury.