ESPN

The Los Angeles Clippers knew what was at stake heading into Wednesday night’s regular-season finale against the Sacramento Kings. Win the game and they clinch home-court advantage against the Memphis Grizzlies. Lose and they open the first round of the playoffs on the road.

To complicate matters, the game would possibly be the last ever played in Sacramento at Sleep Train Arena, as it has yet to be decided by the NBA whether the franchise will be sold to a group planning to move the Kings to Seattle and become the Supersonics in the offseason or stay in Sacramento with new, local ownership. As a result, Kings fans were loud and passionate, and the players -- despite having nothing to play for in the standings -- were inspired.

Before tipoff, the Clippers were notified that both the Grizzlies and Denver Nuggets had won earlier in the day, adding even more pressure.

The game was set up for the Clippers to fail, and they almost did, barely eking out a 112-108 win over the emotional Kings. With the win, the Clippers capped off the most successful regular season in franchise history on a high note, setting records in home wins (32) and road wins (24), to go along with a slew of other milestones.

Chris Paul scored 24 points and dished out 11 assists, and Chauncey Billups showed the Clippers what they’ve been missing for most of the season with 17 points.

Blake Griffin, who tweaked his back shooting during warmups and posted only seven points (3-of-10 shooting) and four rebounds, had a momentary scare late in the first half when he fell on his backside and had to leave the game with back spasms. He returned in the second half, albeit visibly hobbled and limited. After the game, he said he felt fine and it shouldn’t be an issue in the playoffs.

Here are three takeaways from Wednesday night’s regular-season finale:

Game of runs

Neither team played consistent basketball, but the Clippers’ talent disparity was enough to overcome the Kings’ isolation-heavy offense. The Clippers started the second quarter on an 11-1 run, then maintained that pace to hold a 54-46 edge at halftime. But after the Clippers took a 59-50 lead with 9:14 remaining in the third quarter, the Kings responded with a 10-0 run of their own to take their first lead since the first seconds of the game. Paul soon took control and helped L.A. regain the lead. Marcus Thornton certainly made things interesting for the Kings in the fourth with a flurry of 3-pointers. The Clippers were still only up by three points with seven seconds left before Paul made one of two free throws for the final margin.

Crawford’s record-setting night

As Crawford’s third 3-pointer sank through the net, he passed Rasual Butler (145) for the most 3-pointers in a single season by a Clipper. By the time the game was over, Crawford had made six 3-pointers, setting the new mark at 149. His last two 3-pointers, though, were arguably the most important. First, he gave the Clippers a 100-98 lead off a step-back 3-pointer with 2:08 left. Then he made a corner 3 to put the Clips up 103-98 with 1:37 remaining. Griffin and Paul made key baskets down the stretch, and Billups nailed important free throws, but Crawford’s 24 points and six assists were the difference.

“Jamal Crawford made big shot after big shot,” Paul said after the game.

Securing home court

With the victory, the Clippers (56-26) tied the Grizzlies (56-26) for the fourth-best record in the West but secured home-court advantage for the series. The Clippers, by virtue of winning their division, earned home-court advantage in the tiebreaker. Even if that wasn’t the rule, the Clippers won the season series with the Grizzlies 3-1, so they would’ve had the tiebreaker anyway. The Clippers will host Game 1 against the Grizzlies on Saturday night, which is a step up from last season, when L.A. had to win Games 1 and 7 in Memphis before capturing their first-round series.

LOS ANGELES -- Now comes the hard part.

Last week the Los Angeles Clippers clinched their first 50-win season, the division title and swept the season series against their in-building rival, the Los Angeles Lakers.

They accomplished all of the regular-season goals they set for themselves when training camp opened six months ago.

Well, all except for one.

The Clippers want to have home-court advantage in the first round of the playoffs and had been hoping to nab a top-three seed in the West, as well.

While winning the Pacific Division technically gives the Clippers no worse than the No. 4 seed, if the No. 5 seed (the Memphis Grizzlies right now) finishes with a better record than the Clippers (and the Grizzlies would at the moment), the No. 5 seed will have home-court advantage despite owning a lower seed.

That’s why the Clippers are in a similar position as their hallway neighbors entering the final stretch of the regular season. While the Lakers are scoreboard-watching and must win out just to make the playoffs, the Clippers need to do the same if they want to have home-court advantage in the first round.

After the Clippers defeated the Minnesota Timberwolves 111-95 on Wednesday night, Matt Barnes was on his iPhone trying to update the NBA scoreboard.

“Does anyone know if Denver won?” he asked as he furiously slid his finger up and down the screen to no avail.

When he was told the Nuggets had defeated the San Antonio Spurs 96-86, he shook his head, put his phone in his locker and went to the shower.

The win gives Denver a two-game cushion for the No. 3 seed with four games remaining, while the Grizzlies already have one game lead for home court in a potential first-round matchup of Nos. 4 and 5 seeds.

Since the Clippers play the Grizzlies on Saturday, they control their own destiny when it comes to clinching home court in the first round as the No. 4 seed. If the Clippers want to get the No. 3 seed, they must win out and hope Denver loses two of its last four games, against Dallas, Portland, Milwaukee and Phoenix. That’s why it was so vital that San Antonio beat Denver, to get one of those losses out of the way.

The Clippers have been a solid road team this season, going 21-17 outside of Lob City. That’s by far the best road record in team history and the sixth-best road mark in the league. Still, Chris Paul knows how important starting the playoffs at home would be for the Clippers in the postseason.

“It’s very important,” Paul said. “During the regular season you have to build some type of identity on the road, because even with home-court advantage you need to be able to win a game on the road. We understand with the seeding right now, at some point we’re not going to have home-court advantage.

“We’d love to play here as much as possible, but I think we have a team that it really doesn’t matter.”

There are some within the Clippers organization who will say home court isn’t really a necessity given what the Clippers were able to do last season. They point to the fact that the Clippers were able to comeback from 24 down with less than eight minutes left to beat the Grizzlies in Memphis in Game 1 of the first round, then were able to close out the series in Game 7 back at the FedEx Forum.

That was a different team. There are nine new Clippers players on this squad.

“Every year is different,” Paul said. “You just don’t think about it. Whether you have home court or not, you still have to play the games. And I think for us right now, it’s about making sure we play the right way.

“As long as we play the right way, we control our destiny.”

The Clippers have finally started playing the right way, winning three straight for the first time since the end of February. It also snaps the Clippers out of a funk they had been in, losing eight of 14 games and going 17-17 after the first half of the season.

“Our past three games, our defense has been really good and our energy has been up,” Paul said. “We just have to keep it up. For a while there we were always a step late, and we’re talking a lot more and the energy has picked up.”

“We’re still not perfect, but we’re headed in the right direction,” he said. “We just said enough is enough. We were tired of losing. We kept talking that we didn’t want to back into the playoffs.”

Outside of wanting to win their final four games to get home court in the first round, the Clippers also would like to head into the playoffs on a seven-game winning streak and recapture the same feeling they had when they won 17 straight in December. The Clippers’ longest streak since then has been four games.

“You don’t want to be on a three-game losing streak going into the playoffs,” Paul said. “I’ve been in that situation where we lost three of our last four games and we got beat 4-1 by Denver in 2008-09. You just want to make sure you’re going in with a positive feeling.”

As important as home court in the first round would be, the Clippers also understand if they get past the first round and go as far as they would like, they will have to win games on the road.

“Right now, unfortunately, the only time we’d have home court probably is in the first round,” Blake Griffin said. “That’s still huge for us, and that alone should really help us focus and really lock down with that kind of urgency.”

LOS ANGELES -- The Los Angeles Clippers will broadcast the team's remaining regular season and playoff games in Chinese (Mandarin), beginning with Wednesday's game against the Minnesota Timberwolves at Staples Center, the team announced Wednesday. The games will be broadcast on radio stations 1370 AM and 105.9 FM in Los Angeles.

The Clippers traveled to China in October to play the Miami Heat in two games, one in Beijing and one in Shanghai.

LOS ANGELES –-- Vinny Del Negro ripped into his team.

It was nothing new. He had done it before after similarly embarrassing losses earlier this season, but there seemed to be a different tone in his voice after he rattled off the reasons why the Houston Rockets, without James Harden, were able to beat his Los Angeles Clippers 98-81 last Saturday.

“They played harder than we did,” Del Negro said. “We were terrible. Our effort was terrible, our attitude was terrible, our urgency was terrible. Very disappointed. I didn’t see the fight in us tonight, and we need guys to step up.”

Del Negro will be the first one to defend his team and his style when outsiders talk about the Clippers’ lack of a half-court offense or their pathetic 3-point defense or any other shortcomings they might have, but on this night his team didn’t give him much to work with even if he wanted to find a glimmer of a silver lining.

The Clippers only have eight games left in the season and are fighting for the third seed in the West and home-court advantage in the first round, and yet they played like a team with everything locked up and nothing to prove.

“We’re fighting for a spot, and we come out with that second-half -- pretty much the whole game -- effort. It was poor.” Del Negro said. “I know it’s the fourth game in five nights, but that’s no excuse. We’ve got plenty of depth. No excuses. I don’t believe in that.”

There are no excuses, and pretty soon it won’t even matter if the Clippers want to rattle off all the excuses for their disappointing second half. After an NBA-best 32-9 start to the season, the Clippers are 17-16 during the second half of the season. In the month of March they’re 7-7 and recently went three weeks without winning consecutive games.

As great as the Clippers were during the first half of the season, they’ve basically been a .500 team since the All-Star break, and Del Negro has every right to light into his team -- because for all his shortcomings as a coach, he can’t make the Clippers want to be great. He can’t coach effort. If the Clippers want to lay down against Houston in the last game of a long road trip, there’s only so much he can do.

That’s why these final eight games of the season are so critical for the Clippers and their future. They’ve been one of the top five teams in the league all season and seemed like a lock to be the third seed in the West last month, but that is unraveling now. If they finish with the fifth-best record in the West and have to start the playoffs on the road against Denver or Memphis, they could be one-and-done in the postseason.

Suddenly, a team on the rise could be taking a big step back, which will no doubt force the Clippers' management to take a big step back themselves this offseason when assessing this team and who is and isn't on it.

When Los Angeles Clippers coach Vinny Del Negro stood outside the visiting locker room of the American Airlines Center in Dallas this week he talked about the delusional expectations outsiders have for his team. How having a championship-or-bust mentality for a franchise that has never advanced past the second round is nonsense.

Maybe, but many of those expectations were created by his team during the first half of the season, especially through the first 10 games.

The Clippers started the season 8-2, beating the Lakers, Memphis, San Antonio (twice), Portland, Atlanta and Miami. They started the first half of the season a league-best 32-9 and before Miami’s 27-game winning streak, the Clippers held the league’s longest streak this season with a 17-game run in December.

The problem is the Clippers’ haven’t had the same kind of success during the second half of the season, which is normally when contenders separate themselves from pretenders.

The Clippers are 17-14 so far during the second half, heading into Friday’s game against the Spurs. Their longest winning streak during that time has been four games but they went three weeks in March without winning consecutive games and haven’t won three in a row since February. Worse yet, the Clippers are 0-6 against teams seeded sixth or higher in the West since Jan. 14 and are 0-5 against San Antonio, Oklahoma City and Miami since Nov. 20.

Whenever the Clippers talk about themselves as contenders, they will reference their wins over Miami and San Antonio and talk about their winning streak, but all of that happened before the calendars flipped to 2013. This isn’t to say the Clippers can’t regain their old form but they’ve done very little during the second half of the season to make anyone think that they’ll be contending for a championship or even a Western Conference title game berth this season.

Then again, maybe thinking the Clippers could go that far this season goes back to the delusional expectations Del Negro was talking about.

Either way, Friday night’s game against San Antonio is the kind of game the Clippers have to win to get back on track and move closer to the contender category and away from the pretender group they have started to slip toward. A win would give the Clippers a win against one of the league’s top three teams in the league for the first time since Nov. 19 and a win over one of the top six seeds in the West for the first time since Jan. 14. The Clippers can only hang their hats on wins that took place before Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day for so long.

A Clippers win Friday or Saturday in Houston, combined with a Golden State loss would also give the Clippers their first 50-win season in franchise history and also clinch their first ever division title.

It’s the kind season that would be considered a dream season for the Clippers a couple of years ago but the expectations for this team has changed, and as delusional as that might sound, this team’s goals should be higher than that heading into the playoffs.

Chris Paul never really takes a break from basketball. Even when he’s not playing, he’s watching at least one game somewhere.

He’s either watching game film on his iPad, a live game on League Pass or maybe a couple of games on his TV and laptop. He knows what every team in the league is doing, so it’s no surprise that he thinks his Los Angeles Clippers have some work to do before the playoffs begin.

“We’ve been playing pretty well but we haven’t necessarily been playing effective,” Paul said before a recent game. “Our defense has slipped a lot and that’s why we’ve been losing games. I think our intensity is there. We just have to be there earlier. Right now, we’re a step slow on things. We’re catching stuff a second late. We have to be there earlier. During our 17-game winning streak our defense wasn’t always great but when you win it covers everything up.”

Paul, who is close friends with LeBron James, has kept an eye Miami Heat’s 23-game winning streak and has also watched the Denver Nuggets’ 13-game winning streak. He remembers the way the Clippers played during their 17-game winning streak earlier in the season and thinks the Clippers can reclaim some of the magic during the team’s final 15 games of the season as they try to lock up a top-three seed in the Western Conference playoffs.

“What we were doing was pretty effective,” Paul said. “As we’ve been saying all year, every game we play against another team is a big game for them and we have to approach it like that. When teams beat us, you can hear them and see them excited. At some point we got to a point where we expected to beat everyone. That’s not a bad thing but at the same time we’ve got to want it.”

For whatever reason, the Clippers’ haven’t wanted it enough against the top teams in the league, especially teams in the West. The Clippers are 0-6 against teams seeded sixth or higher in the West since Jan. 14.

“We know who we’re capable of beating,” Paul said. “It doesn’t matter if you beat everybody; it’s all about playing right for the playoffs. There were probably a few guys on our team who have never experienced that as far as being one of the top teams and having everyone gunning for you. I think for us it’s been an experience in itself and we have to keep getting better.”

With 15 games left in the season, Paul would like to see the Clippers get on another winning streak heading into the playoffs and start playing the same way they did when they put together their last long winning streak.

“This is the stretch run right here,” Paul said. “The good thing about not necessarily playing as well as we could right now is we know we can get better. If everything was clicking, it would be like what could we do, but we know we have to get better.”

LOS ANGELES – The Los Angeles Clippers have signed guard Maalik Wayns to a second 10-day contract, the team announced Tuesday.

Wayns appeared in one game for the Clippers, scoring two points and dishing out five assists in a 129-97 win over the Detroit Pistons on March 10.

Wayns averaged 12.4 points and 3.0 assists in nine games, including three starts, for the Rio Grande Valley Vipers of the NBA Development League this season.

The 6-foot-2 guards from Villanova started the season in the NBA with the Philadelphia 76ers and appeared in 21 games for the Sixers. In those 21 games, including one start, he averaged 2.7 points and 1.0 assist in 7.8 minutes of play.

LOS ANGELES -- The Los Angeles Clippers signed forward DaJuan Summers to a 10-day contract, the team announced Friday.

Summers averaged 18.0 points and 7.6 rebounds in 33.1 minutes of action for the Maine Red Claws of the NBA Development League this season over 29 games, including 16 starts.

The 6-foot-8 forward from Georgetown was the 35th overall pick in the 2009 NBA Draft. He appeared in 81 games, including seven starts, for the Detroit Pistons and New Orleans Hornets from 2009-2012. He has career averages of 3.4 points and 1.0 rebound in 10.0 minutes of action.

The Clippers made room on the roster for Summer by waiving forward Trey Thompkins on Thursday. After signing guard Maalik Wayns to a 10-day contract last week, the Clippers roster now stands at 15, including two former D-League players on 10-day contracts.

LOS ANGELES -- The Los Angeles Clippers waived forward Trey Thompkins, the team announced Thursday.

Thompkins was the 37th overall selection of the 2011 NBA Draft by the Clippers out of Georgia, and averaged 2.4 points and 1.0 rebounds in 24 games during his rookie season. He did not appear in a game this season because of a left knee bone bruise.

"We want to thank Trey for his contribution to the Clippers,” Clippers head coach Vinny Del Negro said. “Unfortunately, he was never able to truly showcase his talents this season due to injuries. We wish him all the best and believe he has a bright future."

The Clippers roster currently stands at 14.

LOS ANGELES -- Jamal Crawford thought he should have been selected to play in the NBA All-Star Game last month.

He tries not to think about it anymore, but it still stings him to think that the best and most enjoyable season of his career wasn’t worthy of an invitation to a game seemingly tailor-made for his skill set.

While some veterans begrudgingly go to the All-Star Game or simply go through the motions when they get there, Crawford had a variety of moves he wanted to showcase in the game. He has kept them in his back pocket since he was snubbed. But Wednesday night against with the Milwaukee Bucks, he put one on display that may go down as the best lob dunk in Lob City’s short history.

At 106-91 in favor of the Clippers, the game already was in hand by the time Crawford ran up behind Brandon Jennings and slapped the ball out of his hands with 6:20 left in the fourth quarter. Eric Bledsoe quickly picked up the loose ball, saw Crawford in front of him and Blake Griffin trailing in the open court and flicked the ball to Crawford.

“I knew I had to get it to Jamal,” Bledsoe said. “When you see Blake trailing, you know something is going to happen. Jamal is that type of player that’s going to come up with some creativity.”

Creativity is one way to explain what Crawford did as soon as he got the ball in his hands. With Griffin trailing him, Crawford didn’t even take a dribble as he lofted the ball up with his right hand, brought it between his legs in midair before leaving it perfectly placed in front of the rim for Griffin.

“I honestly didn’t know what I was going to do,” Crawford said. “We had a whole open court and the best jumper in the world right there and you might as well get creative. That’s something I’ve always wanted to do in a game or if I ever made the All-Star Game.”

Although the stage wasn’t quite as big as the All-Star Game, Crawford’s play probably will be replayed more than any from this year’s All-Star Game.

With Griffin leaping and Crawford still in midair, Griffin caught Crawford’s lob and brought it back for a windmill dunk that brought the sold-out Staples Center crowd to its feet ... and nearly broke Twitter in the process.

“I honestly had no idea what he was going to do,” Griffin said, sounding similar to Crawford when describing the play. “I thought he was going to throw it off the backboard. Normally in situation like that you’re looking at each other like, ‘What are you going to do?’ But he didn’t even look back and I was just kind of stuck out there. And I saw him do his little between the legs and I’ve seen that before in practice so I just tried to finish.”

Griffin’s idea of “just trying to finish” was a windmill dunk that brought the entire Clippers’ bench onto the floor and caused Griffin to laugh as he ran toward the bench.

“He windmilled it!” Crawford said. “That’s sick. You’re just supposed to catch it and dunk it.

“He said he thought I was going to throw it off the glass. When I threw it, I said, ‘Please, just dunk it. I don’t want coach to be mad at me.’ He caught it and took it to a whole other level.”

Chris Paul was on the bench when the play happened and was still shaking his head about it after the game.

“It was crazy,” Paul said. “Jamal is real tricky with the ball. I thought he was going to throw it off the backboard. It was a nice play.”

Lamar Odom teased some of his teammates after the game that the Crawford-Griffin lob dunk was the best lob dunk the Clippers have had since he connected with Darius Miles in midair back in 2001.

“We got a lot of guys who are really good with the basketball in their hands on this team,” Odom said. “You don’t see that too much where you have seven or eight guys that can pass, shoot and dribble. Even our bigs can do it. That’s what Blake is so underrated at. He’s one of the most complete basketball players in the game.”

Crawford was going through his Twitter mentions after the game, scrolling past LeBron James telling him that he and Dwyane Wade would steal his move and onto the NBA’s official account asking if it was the dunk of the year. Meanwhile, Griffin, Paul and other players were getting their first chance to see replays of it on their iPhones and iPads.

“I think that’s by far the best one,” Bledsoe said. “A between-the-legs lob -- you really don’t see that too often -- and then Blake finished with a windmill. That made the whole play.”

Griffin agreed, although he had a hard time going through all the lob dunks he has been a part of the past three seasons.

“It’s definitely one of the most creative as far as the pass,” Griffin said. “I don’t really rank them like that in my board at home.”

Crawford said the play is one of many he had planned if he had been selected to play in the NBA All-Star Game. Thankfully for Clippers fans, the NBA’s loss is now their gain.

“I had some things planned if I ever made it,” Crawford said. “Whatever. Now I just have to pull it out in the games every now and then.”

LOS ANGELES -- The game had already been decided, with the Los Angeles Clippers holding a 106-91 lead on the Milwaukee Bucks with 6:21 left in the game.

As Brandon Jennings advanced up court, he lost the ball to Eric Bledsoe, who quickly fed the ball to Jamal Crawford on an outlet pass.

Now this would normally be a time in the game when Crawford would drain a 3-pointer or take it in for an easy layup. But there’s something about being in the open court with Blake Griffin that brings out the creative juices.

That’s why Crawford put the ball between his legs, jumped and lofted it up to Griffin, who caught the ball in midair and completed a windmill slam dunk.

There have been plenty of impressive dunks in Lob City over the past two seasons, but that one may be the best, or at least the most creative.

It put the exclamation point on the Clippers’ 117-101 win over the Bucks and shrunk the Clippers’ magic number for their first division title to 11.

Here are three takeaways from the game:

Blake’s day

Griffin spent the previous three days looking at the replays of and being asked about Serge Ibaka’s shot to his groin in Sunday’s loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder. On Wednesday night, he played like someone who wanted to put that behind him and give everyone something else to talk about. He did just that by putting up his first triple-double since his rookie season and the third of his career. Griffin finished with 23 points, 11 assists and 11 rebounds for his most complete game of the season.

Crawford and Barnes lead bench

The Clippers are at their best when their bench gets going, and that usually means Crawford and Matt Barnes are having big nights. On Wednesday, they were both hitting on all cylinders. Crawford finished with 25 points, four rebounds and a pair of assists, while Matt Barnes scored 20 and had two rebounds and two assists. Barnes hit six of 11 from beyond the arc, while Crawford was 3-of-6 from downtown. As a team, the Clippers hit 12 of 29 3-pointers.

Defensive woes

As good as the Clippers were on offense, their defense was fairly subpar through three quarters; the Bucks were shooting 53 percent from the field and were within a couple baskets late, until the Clippers pulled away in the fourth quarter. The Clippers have often talked about pace this season and making sure they are in the control at all times. They did a good job in the fourth quarter, but they allowed the Bucks to score on the fast break far too often through the first three quarters.

LOS ANGELES – Chris Paul had seen enough.

As he sat on the Los Angeles Clippers' bench Thursday night and watched the Clippers slowly squander a 17-point fourth-quarter lead, he took off his gray warmup shirt and went back into the game.

The Clippers had blown their fair share of leads earlier this season while Paul, wearing a three-piece suit, was injured and helplessly watched from the bench. He wasn’t about to let it happen again now that he was able to enter the game and close it out.

After the Pacers went on a 15-2 run late in the fourth quarter to pull within four points of the Clippers, Paul scored the Clippers’ last eight points to lead L.A. to a 99-91 win, easily one of its biggest road victories of the season.

Paul’s final line -– 29 points, 8 assists and 6 rebounds –- doesn’t quite do his game justice. Every one of Paul’s points, assists and rebounds seemingly came at a critical juncture of the game as the Clippers tried to take control of the contest.

Clippers coach Vinny Del Negro has often pleaded with Paul to be more aggressive early in games, knowing he has the ability to impose his will on teams offensively. More often than not, however, Paul chooses to let the game come to him and get his teammates involved early.

That wasn’t the case on Thursday night as Paul scored eight points on 4-of-6 shooting in the first quarter and dished out four assists as the Clippers jumped out to an early lead. Paul again stepped up in the third quarter after the Clippers gave up a nine-point lead in the second quarter. He scored nine points on 3-of-5 shooting in the third quarter and handed out four more assists. He played every second of the first and third quarters and set the tone early in the first and second half.

Paul was unstoppable in the final three minutes of the game as he drove to the basket and was as aggressive as he has been all season in scoring from 16 feet out, converting a driving layup, hitting a jump shot and drawing a foul and then nailing both free throws.

“We’ve sort of been a team that has been able to get a big lead in the fourth quarter and every now and then we have let teams back into the game,” Paul said. “Those guys went on a 13-0 run or something but we were able to close it out.”

After the game, Pacers coach Frank Vogel called Paul "the best point guard in the universe right now."

At the end of close games, Paul can often be heard yelling “winning time” at his teammates. On Thursday night, he showed them what that was all about.

Here are three takeaways from the game:

Father’s day

Jamal Crawford missed the Clippers’ game on Tuesday night against Charlotte to be with his wife in Seattle for the birth of his daughter, London. On Thursday, he rejoined the team in Indiana, and it didn’t take him long to get back into a groove. He finished with 23 points on 9-of-16 shooting. It was Crawford’s best game since scoring 27 against the New York Knicks at Madison Square Garden earlier this month.

"I haven’t played in almost a week," Crawford said. " I was able to work out a couple of times, try and stay sharp and keep my rhythm. My team did a great job of finding me tonight and Coach called a couple of good plays to try and get me going."

3-point problems

As well as the Clippers played on Thursday night, they were downright awful from beyond the arc. The Clippers hit just 4-of-23 3-pointers (17.4 percent) and hit just 1-of-14 in the first half. In fairness to the Clippers, about a dozen of those misses in the first half were wide open and simply didn’t fall. Either way, you’re not going to be in many games when you continuing shooting and missing from the outside like the Clippers were in the first half. Luckily for the Clippers, the Pacers (9-of-25) weren’t a whole lot better.

Griffin pushes through

Blake Griffin has been quietly efficient over the past two games, hitting 18-of-24 from the field. On Thursday night, Griffin scored 18 points and grabbed 14 rebounds. He came up big in the third quarter, scoring 10 points and helping the Clippers take a nine-point lead. Griffin also hit 4-of-5 free throws. This month, Griffin has made almost 70 percent of his free throws.

LOS ANGELES -- Twitter hasn't been around very long, but if it were around during the Los Angeles Clippers' early years, chances are players wouldn't be running to their computers and phones after games to praise the team they played for.

In fact, it might have been fertile ground for some good #ShotsFired moments.

You might have had Ron Harper comparing his time with the Clippers to being in jail. You could have had Danny Ferry tweeting that he would never play for the Clippers while he hid in Italy. And you might even have had Shaun Livingston tweeting about rehabbing his knee in a public health club next to senior citizens.

Thankfully for the Clippers, Twitter's rise into the social consciousness has coincided with the Clippers' rise in respectability and few public forums have done a better job of showcasing the Clippers' newfound admiration quite like Twitter.

On Monday, Jamal Crawford was in Seattle for the birth of his daughter, London. He would also be forced to miss Tuesday's game to be with his wife before rejoining the team in Indianapolis on Thursday.

Before Tuesday's game against the Charlotte Bobcats, Clippers forward Trey Thompkins tweeted a picture of the Clippers' entire team, coaches and training staff and sent it to Crawford with the message: "Show love all the way to London #ClipFam."

In the picture, all the Clippers are gathered at center court of the team's training facility with Chris Paul and Caron Butler holding a hand-written sign that read, "Welcome to the Clippers family London!"

Soon after the photo was tweeted, Crawford tweeted back, "Clippers organization from top to bottom is the best, never wanna play anywhere else. #honestmoment #family"

It might have been just another tweet for any other team, but not for the Clippers. Here was a player going out of his way to say the Clippers' organization was the best he has ever been associated with and he never wanted to play anywhere else.

It's a culture change that Paul helped usher in when he arrived in Los Angeles before last season. He wanted players to know each others' families, he wanted them to attend their children's birthday parties and act as extended family members.

Blake Griffin and DeAndre Jordan basically serve as honorary uncles to their teammates' kids now after games as children run around the locker room, developing new handshakes and make-believe dunks.

Crawford swears the atmosphere has helped him have one of the better seasons of his career.

"This is the most fun I've had playing basketball," Crawford said. "I've never been a part of a team like this where it's a real family."

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LOS ANGELES -- Coach Vinny Del Negro mentioned it in the pregame presser. Chris Paul and DeAndre Jordan discussed it at shootaround. It’s been a mantra for the Los Angeles Clippers all season:

No matter its record, don’t overlook an opponent or take an easier game for granted.

With the lowly Charlotte Bobcats in town -- owners of the league’s worst record by three games -- it would have been easy for the Clippers to chalk this game up as a win before it even started and begin preparing for their upcoming road trip to Indiana and Cleveland.

Judging by the first 20 minutes of the game, it seemed like the Clippers were going to do just that. They looked lethargic, didn’t close out on shooters or drives and were stagnant offensively whenever the ball wasn’t in Paul’s hands. They trailed by as many as eight points to a team that ranks 29th in both offensive and defensive efficiency. The fact that Eric Bledsoe (sore left calf) and Jamal Crawford (after the birth of his daughter, London, on Monday) were out certainly didn’t help matters.

Then, the Blake Griffin show happened.

Griffin converted on two lobs from Paul, as well as a thunderous driving slam, and the Clippers never looked back, taking a nine-point lead into the half and full control of the game.

The Staples Center crowd got into it, the Bobcats’ confidence waned and 3-pointers started raining in (Lamar Odom even made one). Before it was all over, Griffin had poured in 24 points and six assists, Caron Butler scored 16 points and Matt Barnes chipped in 17 points and seven assists. It was pure Clippers domination.

The result? The Clippers trounced the Bobcats, 106-84, and maintained control over their position as the three seed in the Western Conference.

Here are three takeaways:

Second-quarter surge

Although the Clippers permanently separated themselves from the Bobcats in the third quarter, their 13-3 run in the last four minutes of the second quarter considerably shifted the game’s momentum. Led by Griffin’s dunking barrage, the Clippers quickly turned a three-point deficit into a nine-point lead. Once Lob City is in high gear -- often with the Clippers applying suffocating defensive pressure and forcing turnovers that lead to highlight-reel dunks -- it’s difficult to stop them. The young and inexperienced Bobcats learned that the hard way.

Sharing the ball

Any Paul-led team is going to rack up a lot of assists, but the Clippers’ 34 assists on 41 baskets was an admirable feat. With Crawford and Bledsoe out, the Clippers’ second unit relied on sound spacing and off-ball movement to compensate for the offensive creativity the backcourt duo usually provides. Since Chauncey Billups is still on a minutes restriction, Paul had to log heavy minutes through the first three quarters (he played 32 of 36 possible minutes), causing him to dish more (13 assists) and conserve his energy for defense.

Perimeter defense

The only blemish in an otherwise impressive victory was the Clippers’ inability to contain the Bobcats on the perimeter. Gerald Henderson tormented the Clippers’ wings with 24 points on 12-of-19 shooting, making him look more like a height-of-career version of his owner (Michael Jordan) than a solid role player. Kemba Walker (15 points) and Ramon Sessions (11 points) got to the rim at will, and while they didn’t always finish, they still had high-percentage looks. The Clippers shored up the issue in the second half, but they’ll have to find a way to stop quick guards (read: Tony Parker and Russell Westbrook) from getting into the paint.

LOS ANGELES -- When the Los Angeles Clippers traded Mo Williams for Lamar Odom as part of a four-team swap eight months ago, they knew they were taking a risk.

They made the trade hoping that at some point this season they might get some semblance of the Odom who won the Sixth Man of the Year award in 2011 and helped the Los Angeles Lakers win back-to-back championships.

They knew, however, in the interim they were getting an Odom who was 30 pounds overweight and was so ineffective during his forgettable 50-game stint with the Dallas Mavericks last season that the two cut ties in the midst of the season.

There have been glimpses recently that the old Odom might be back, and Saturday night might have served as his welcome-back party.

Odom had 18 points, six rebounds and two assists in the Clippers’ 107-94 win against the Utah Jazz. Odom scored 16 of his points in the second half as the Clippers took a two-point halftime lead and turned it into a 21-point lead in the second half. It was Odom’s highest point total since scoring 19 on Jan. 19, 2012, and was arguably his most complete game since he was a member of the Lakers.

“Matt Barnes said he went to the hot tub time machine tonight,” Chris Paul said. “He came out, and there was that Lamar Odom that everybody around here has grown to know and love. With the spirit that he has, you have no choice but to be happy for him. That’s my guy. I’ve been waiting for him to do this because we know he’s capable of it, and we hope there’s more to come.”

There were times earlier this season where Odom wouldn’t even look at the basket when the ball found his hands. It didn’t matter if he was wide open; he would look to swing the ball and get the ball out of his hands as soon as possible. He made his presence felt on the defensive end and was a facilitator but was nonexistent on offense, and defenses knew it. That has slowly changed, and on Saturday, Odom made the Jazz pay for leaving him open.

“All season long we’ve been yelling at him to shoot it,” Paul said. “Now he’s starting to shoot it. At the end of the day, you have the confidence in yourself and we all have the utmost confidence in him. Out of a timeout, we drew up a play for him, and I’m one of the guys who is always telling him to shoot it. You’re always open, shoot it. If he gets it going like this for us now, it just makes us that much more dangerous.”

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