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Over the past quarter-century, the NBA has seen the Black Mamba, Larry Legend, His Airness, The Answer, The Truth, The Mailman, King James, Vinsanity, Flash and Magic.

But the Big Fundamental? If ever a nickname was assigned with a firm backhand, this is it.

Kobe Bryant attacks; Michael Jordan soars; Karl Malone delivers.

Tim Duncan? He's a large man who's really good at mechanics! While other stars transcend the game as superheroes, Duncan merely masters it as a craftsman.

An example: In the second possession of Game 4 against the Clippers, Duncan ran a little cross with Boris Diaw on the right side. Duncan's goal here? To upgrade his advantage against his defensive counterpart. Before crossing paths with Diaw, Duncan had 7-footer DeAndre Jordan fronting him. But after the subtle, little action, Duncan had the much shorter Blake Griffin.

Only that wasn't enough.

As the ball worked its way to the left side of the floor, Duncan followed it. Seeing Danny Green pressured against the sideline by Clippers guard Randy Foye, Duncan set a pick for Green on the high side. This not only allowed Green to wiggle out of trouble, but Duncan was also able to peel off to a couple of feet from his favorite spot off the left block -- and now with the 6-foot-4 Foye as his defender.

Duncan had turned the Clippers roster into matryoshka dolls. Every time he took apart one defender, a smaller one would appear.

Green ultimately dished the ball off to Duncan, who caught, squared, shot and swished. From the top of the key, Griffin watched the flight of the ball, stood still for a second, then retreated upcourt. Somehow, he got taken out of the play. But only 150-some-odd games into his career, Griffin could only process and learn.

"The way [Duncan] plays is so methodical, but at the same time he doesn't overthink the game," Griffin said after the game. "That's something I want to get to."

This was a very nuanced parallel Griffin constructed to describe what Duncan does on the court. We usually regard "method" as something that results from a great deal of thought, but here's Griffin drawing a distinction: For all of Duncan's technique, he rarely trips himself up with complexities. He rarely pauses, hedges or becomes paralyzed by choices.

Duncan has distilled the game down to its essentials. Play his left shoulder and he'll turn middle and devastate you with that running hook through the lane, or worse, take it all the way to the hole for the slam. Play his right shoulder and the bank is open.

You've seen all this thousands of times.

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In the most recent issue of Intelligent Life (via The Economist), Ian Leslie writes about how the most accomplished and creative performers in the world get the best results from not, as Griffin said, overthinking.

Leslie contrasts Novak Djokovic and Roger Federer in the fifth set of a semi-final match in the 2011 U.S. Open. Confronting elimination on a match point for Federer, Djokovic unleashed one of the nastiest forehand returns you'll ever see. Typically, players in Djokovic's situation proceed more cautiously. They're more apt to go with a defensive return to guarantee they stay in the match. Djokovic did no such thing.

After it was all over, Federer was exasperated by Djokovic's return:

Djokovic won the game, set, match and tournament. At his press conference, Federer was a study in quiet fury. It was tough, he said, to lose because of a “lucky shot”. Some players do that, he continued: “Down 5-2 in the third, they just start slapping shots …How can you play a shot like that on match point?”

Asked the same question, Djokovic smiled. “Yeah, I tend to do that on match points. It kinda works.”

Federer, one of tennis' all-time greats, will go down as among the most heralded Thinking Person's athletes in history. He's fallen off over the past couple of years, and Leslie wonders if the contrasting reactions of Federer and Djokovic (now the world's top-ranked player, a position held by Federer for years) speaks to something larger:

Perhaps Federer was so upset because, deep down, he recognised that his opponent had tapped into a resource that he, an all-time great, is finding harder to reach: unthinking.

Unthinking is the ability to apply years of learning at the crucial moment by removing your thinking self from the equation.

Malcolm Gladwell addressed this notion in his book, "Blink." Practice, experience -- what athletes commonly call "reps" -- help develop strong instincts. Duncan has them, as does Federer, Djokovic and most other top-flight talents. Gladwell wrote that the best way to achieve maximum results is to deploy those instincts decisively, without deliberation or rifling through too much information at the moment of reckoning. The expertise acquired over years and years will act as a guide. As Federer said, "But, look, maybe he's been doing it for 20 years, so for him it was very normal. You've got to ask him."

That 20 years is key, and it might be one reason why older teams like the Spurs and vets like Duncan seem so poised when the field of contenders is whittled down to a select few in June. We tend to regard those guys in their 30s as "smarter" -- and they might very well be -- but it could be that they're just methodical-without-overthinking because they arrive at big moments with so much experience:

Unthinking is not the same as ignorance; you can’t unthink if you haven’t already thought. Djokovic was able to pull off his wonder shot because he had played a thousand variations on it in previous matches and practice ... The unconscious minds of great artists and sportsmen are like dense rainforests, which send up spores of inspiration.

When you have years of muscle memory from shooting a lifetime of bank shots, you don't have to think -- you just have to act.

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Temperamentally on their respective courts, Djokovic and Duncan couldn't be more different. Djokovic plays to the crowd, while Duncan often seems like he could be in an empty gym. But they both carry that special combination that Griffin aspires to -- the ability to apply method to their decision-making, but without overthinking that process.

If you're an intrinsically thoughtful person, being told not to think so much is really annoying. How do you do it? Leslie turns to Bob Dylan, who famously wrote "Like a Rolling Stone" in no time flat. Dylan referred to the making of the song as a "piece of vomit, 20 pages long." Dylan said this about keeping analysis paralysis out of the process:

Dylan believes the creative impulse needs protecting from self-analysis: “As you get older, you get smarter, and that can hinder you…You’ve got to programme your brain not to think too much.” Flann O’Brien said we should be “calculatedly stupid” in order to write. The only reliable cure for overthinking seems to be enjoyment, something that both success and analysis can dull. Experienced athletes and artists often complain that they have lost touch with what made them love what they do in the first place. Thinking about it is a poor substitute.

Maybe that's Duncan's secret: He's never disconnected himself from his roots in the game. He won't release a primal scream after a dunk, nor will he bask in the afterglow of a win (he will, however, tell you about the virtues of being mellow). But if you watch Duncan closely enough, you'll see a man so comfortable in his method and purpose, that it's impossible to think he doesn't love what he does.

It's a fundamental joy.

The San Antonio Spurs extended their win streak to 17 games (dating to the regular season) in historic fashion.

In Game 3, San Antonio trailed by 22 points after the first quarter, 33-11. That deficit after the first 12 minutes of play is the largest overcome to win a playoff game in NBA history. The previous record was held by the 2008 Celtics, who trailed by 21 against the Los Angeles Lakers after the first quarter (35-14) in Game 4 of the NBA Finals. Like Saturday, that game was also at the Staples Center.

The Spurs trailed by 24 points in the second quarter (40-16), making this the second-largest comeback win this postseason. In the first round, the Clippers erased a 27-point deficit in the third quarter of Game 1 against the Memphis Grizzlies.

The Spurs comeback was highlighted by a 24-0 run in the third quarter. The Spurs made 10-of-15 field goals and did not commit a turnover in turning a 57-45 deficit into a 69-57 lead. The Clippers went 0-for-12 from the field during the Spurs run and were scoreless for eight minutes.

Four different Spurs scored during the run, led by nine from Tim Duncan. On the other side, five different Clippers missed at least one field goal attempt, including four by Blake Griffin.

The Clippers jumped out to a 24-point lead less than 15 minutes into the game, shooting better than 65 percent from the field (17-26). But over the final 33:17, the Clippers made just 20 field goals and missed nine of 14 free throws.

Duncan, Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili have played 52 minutes together in the series, and the Spurs have outscored the Clippers by 44 points.

Duncan finished with 19 points and 13 rebounds, the 134th double-double of his postseason career. Duncan now is three shy of Bill Russell for fourth on the all-time list.

The Spurs now are 7-0 this postseason, the first time in franchise history they have won their first seven games to start a postseason.

The lone bright spot for the Clippers was Griffin, who scored 20 of his game-high 28 points in the first half. He’s only the second different player to score at least 20 points in the first half of a playoff game in franchise history. Elton Brand did it twice during the 2006 postseason against the Phoenix Suns.

HoopIdea wants to #StopTheFlop. To spotlight the biggest fakers, we present Flop of the Night. You can help us separate the pretenders from the defenders -- details below:

Today we bring you not one, not two, but three egregious flops from two of the game's finest players.

LeBron James is the most dominant athlete in the NBA, capable of leveling an entire team with an inspired run of unstoppable drives to the rim. So his willingness to exaggerate contact tends to drive fans nuts. Last night James found himself trapped against the sideline with David West and Danny Granger closing in on him. Out of any other options, and unprompted by contact, he essentially fell out of bounds (video) to preserve possession.

It happened right in front of ESPN's Mike Tirico, who called LeBron's performance "an extraordinary swan dive."

Not to be outdone, Tony Parker proved to Chris Paul and Blake Griffin that when it comes to flopping they still have much to learn. Parker's first flop came when a nudge from Chris Paul sent him careening to the floor (video).

The call was a big one -- it put Paul on the bench with three first half fouls.

But his best flopping work (Video) of the night came just 20 seconds later, and at the expense of Blake Griffin.

After chasing down a loose ball in the back court, Parker had only a handful of seconds to recover possession and get off a shot before the shotclock expired. Wary of this fact, Griffin chased him along the sideline to force Parker to use up the clock.

Instead, Parker used Blake's effort to draw a foul and rescue the possession.

With the benefit of replay, ABC play-by-play man Dan Shulman explained that instead of being fouled, "Tony Parker initiated that contact. He grabbed the arm of Blake Griffin, and made it look like he was being grabbed."

But the official who made the call was trailing the play, and only saw Parker's "reaction," not the shenanigans that prompted his wild flailing.

When you see an egregious flop that deserves proper recognition, send us a link to the video so we can consider it for Flop of the Night. Here's how to make your submission:

• Alert HoopIdea to super flops with the Twitter hashtag #FlopOfTheNight (follow us on Twitter here).
• Use the #FlopOfTheNight hashtag in Daily Dime Live.
• E-mail us at hoopidea@gmail.com

MEMPHIS, Tenn. -- What was once indifference between the Los Angeles Clippers and Memphis Grizzlies has descended into hostility over six games. These teams actively dislike each other. The Clippers have made light of Memphis' "Grit 'n' Grind" handle and generally annoyed the Grizzlies with their posturing. Memphis has countered that the Clippers are a bunch of floppers -- its head coach going so far as to accuse Chris Paul in a live interview during Game 4. When the topic of Paul's injury came up after Game 6, Zach Randolph fired back that he didn't even know Paul was hurt, implying that the Clippers' injuries were merely incidental, a sideshow.

All of it will come to a head on Sunday afternoon in Game 7.

The health of Chris Paul and Blake Griffin
Whatever Randolph says at the podium, the Clippers simply aren't the same team with Paul and Blake Griffin hobbled. On Friday night after the Grizzlies' Game 6 win in Los Angeles, Paul, Marc Gasol and Randolph pointed out that nobody is 100 percent this time of year. True, but the Clippers can't function as an offensive team without Paul and Griffin. When the Clippers had their offense rolling late in Games 1 and 3 and most of Games 2 and 4, the formula was simple: Make the Grizzlies choose between bringing bodies to the paint to stifle Paul's penetration, which presents problems on the perimeter and with balance, or yield seams to Paul and pray that the help will come from the right place at the right time.

Paul clearly doesn't have the same burst off the bounce or the ability to change speeds, probe, beat his guy and get to his spot for an elbow jumper before the defense can recover. Without that, the Clippers' offense suffers from rigor mortis. Paul can't split a trap, and ultimately, the Grizzlies can play him straight up, while the help can stay home on the Clippers' perimeter shooters. With Paul on the court in Game 6, the Clippers shot only 39 percent.

Meanwhile, Griffin pummeled Memphis in his breakout Game 4 as the roll man with Paul, posting up and going decisively into his move. That's the key: Griffin's knee won't prevent him from being on the floor, but without a confident face-up game, he must rely entirely on those up-and-unders, spins and step-throughs. With the bum knee, he's a step slow -- and you can slice a few inches off the vertical. That's the difference between wreaking destruction at the rim and having to finesse his way to the basket.

The Grizzlies' inside job
Gasol got what he wanted after a frustrating long weekend in Los Angeles during Games 3 and 4: He's again the centerpiece of the Memphis offense. On Friday night, there was a lovely balance to Gasol's game, an exhibition of his versatility. Memphis used him to run a pick-and-roll in the left slot, from where he was able to beat the Clippers' rotation on the dive. They posted him up on the left block, where he launched that pretty hook over the Clippers' defense. And when the Clippers came hard at Gasol in the high post, he dumped it off to Randolph (the recipient of all three of Gasol's assists) in Memphis' savvy high-low game.

The pinpoint bounce pass that Gasol delivered to Randolph at the three-minute mark in Game 6 was a thing of beauty. Mike Conley and Gasol ran that angle pick-and-roll on the left side. Gasol stopped at the edge of the paint and received the pass as the Clippers trapped Conley, forcing Kenyon Martin to rotate up from the baseline. As Martin approached, Gasol hit Randolph wide open beneath the hoop on the right side. A perfectly executed play by Memphis at the biggest moment of the series, which is how you advance in the postseason.

Randolph has found his legs and looks more like the bully from last season's playoffs than the player who was struggling to carve out space for himself down low. For Randolph to be successful, he needs to rip through and keep his defender moving. That's how he creates that space, and that's what he's been doing the past few games.

Having two big men with diverse but overlapping skill sets allows Memphis to do some interesting stuff in the half court. Sometimes the offense just needs a nudge.

Who else for the Clippers?
With Paul and Griffin banged-up, the Clippers must get something exceptional from one of the supporting actors. Randy Foye, Caron Butler, Mo Williams and Nick Young have each had their moments over this season and, to a lesser extent, in the playoffs. In Game 5, that performance came from second-year dragonfly Eric Bledsoe.

Clippers coach Vinny Del Negro isn't predisposed to trust young players. Whether it's because he's risk-averse, conflict-averse or just more comfortable with guys who've "been there," Del Negro favors vets. With Paul hurting and Williams suffering a hand injury in Game 6, Del Negro had to lean on Bledsoe for significant minutes -- and it's about time.

Bledsoe doesn't stretch the floor for the Clippers, but he's their best perimeter defender on and off the ball. He has an uncanny synergy with Paul in the backcourt. For aforementioned reasons, the two played together for only 76 minutes in the regular season. The Clippers scored 111.4 points per 100 possessions during that time and gave up only 93.5. In this series, Bledsoe is a plus-35. When Bledsoe on the floor, Conley is minus-34 (and plus-47 when Bledsoe is off).

Both Bledsoe and Foye, who has struggled in the series, will have to make major contributions on Sunday for the Clippers to escape Memphis with a W. The Clippers also will have to be more resourceful because their two best creators are limited. When Reggie Evans is your roll man off the high ball screen, life doesn't become any easier, because now two defenders are blitzing Paul. As it is, Tony Allen and Conley make things difficult enough because they can play the Clippers' perimeter straight up. Getting the shooters clean looks at the basket will have to come via flare screens and a ton of movement in the half court.

So who's it going to be?

The battle on the margins
In many ways, this series has been fought in the periphery -- on the offensive glass, in passing lanes, at the foul stripe. Neither team has gotten much of what it wants offensively, but there have been ample opportunities to supplement that cruddy output with extras. For instance, the Grizzlies have annihilated the Clippers on the offensive glass, where Memphis has collected more than one out of every three available rebounds -- its 33.7 offensive rebounding rate is tops among postseason teams. (As a frame of reference, the Bulls ranked first in the regular season with a 32.6 offensive rebounding rate.)

For the Grizzlies, this is vital because they're a terrible shooting team. They've been outshot by the Clippers in the series but have been able to make up ground by getting additional looks at the basket -- at short range, no less. Memphis' prowess on the offensive glass is especially impressive when you consider that the Clippers were a pretty decent defensive rebounding team during the regular season. Overall, the Grizzlies have racked up 15.4 second-chance points per 48 minutes, with only 10.2 for the Clippers.

In the turnover event, the Clippers protected the ball better than any team other than Philadelphia during the regular season, and Memphis led the league in opponent turnover rate. Something had to give, and true to form, the Clippers and Grizzlies have played to a draw with identical 12.69 turnover rates. The Grizzlies had been winning the turnover battle but coughed the ball up 22 times in Game 6 -- the only reason the Clippers were in a game in which the Grizzlies shot better and controlled the glass decisively.

Then there's the foul game. Both teams hack with impunity, and both are spending plenty of time at the stripe in this series. But the team that has gotten to the line with greater frequency has won five of the six games -- the Clippers' Game 3 rally the only exception.

Here, the Clippers have to be careful on Sunday. When players are gimpy, they have a tougher time staying in front of their guy. They're more desperate defenders and, in turn, tend to be more likely to foul. Paul didn't foul out of a game all season but was whistled for six fouls in Game 6. Evans, who likely will pick up some of Griffin's minutes, is a foul machine. With the Grizzlies re-establishing their inside game, there will be more pressure than ever on the Clippers' defense to body up on the block. They'll have to do so carefully.

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Information in this post was provided by NBA.com.

MEMPHIS, Tenn. -- Marc Gasol never quite understood how and why the Memphis offense got away from him. He expressed those sentiments after the Grizzlies coughed up a 27-point lead in Game 1 and his frustration came to a head in Game 4 in Los Angeles, when the ball was coming to him late in the shot clock or after the Clippers' help defenders had sniffed out the plan.

On Wednesday during shootaround he was asked if his dormancy in the series could be chalked up to the work of the Clippers' big men fronting him. He politely rejected that theory, pointing out that his defender wasn't the guy doing to fronting, but the Clipper big man hulking on the back line ready to pounce if the ball was delivered to Gasol at either the foul line or the low block. And, furthermore, the Grizzlies guards -- the ones charged with delivering him the ball at his preferred spots -- were getting hounded by the Clippers. So there was that, too.

Translation: I'm seven feet tall! Just pass the ball over the top of the defense and I can figure it out from there! Haven't you watched me play? And if you're not in a position to make those passes, let me know how I can help.

Granted, the Clippers have nobody to match up with Rudy Gay. And, yes, Mike Conley has become a pretty good pick-and-roll practitioner on the right side if Zach Randolph isn't clogging the right block. And of course Gasol is also your best screener, so he's often useful in other capacities.

A playoff series flows in cycles, and in Game 5 the Grizzlies returned to what's worked best for them offensively all season: Starting with Gasol as the fulcrum to leverage the Clippers' defense.

From the opening tip, the Grizzlies created a better work environment for Gasol in the half court. The Clippers' big men are mucking things up? Then have Gasol and Randolph cross low before delivering the ball to Gasol at the foul line!

Defenders are fronting Gasol at his favorite spot? Then let's find some other angles on the side. You'd rather work your offense in the middle of the floor, but sometimes games against tough opponents call for adjustments. So rather than bang your head against the wall, which the Grizzlies did over a long weekend in Los Angeles, take 80 percent of what you like and compromise on the rest.

It wasn't just Gasol's teammates and coaches who would have to accommodate. Gasol would need to work quickly, which we saw at the 4:10 mark of the first quarter when, fronted by Blake Griffin, the ball was delivered to Gasol off the right block -- but closer to the baseline. That's usually an invitation for quick help, but not if you catch and go! Gasol caught and went, spinning baseline before Griffin or any other red jersey could respond.

We saw this old friend again in Game 5. We also saw Gasol trailing in transition, where he's so dangerous.

Better yet, we saw Gasol with a renewed spirit, a mood that was a long departure from his pouty disposition in Game 4. When the Grizzlies missed him on one possession after he'd established prime position Griffin, he turned and growled at the bench after Randolph turned the ball over. If the Grizzlies needed a moment to reset, Gasol rallied his teammates into a huddle. He was emotive and feisty, feeding off a home crowd that was as eager as he was to see the ball in his hands.

It wasn't a perfect night for Gasol or the Grizzlies' offense. 18 of Gasol's 23 points came before intermission, and the Clippers' zone complicated things for Memphis. As is often the case, Memphis' anemic shooting from outside allowed the defense to gradually constrict the Grizzlies' half-court stuff -- with Gasol as the most acute victim. Watch the possessions again and you can see that the Clippers effectively ran a box-and-one, with Reggie Evans or DeAndre Jordan attached to Gasol.

But such is the nature of playoff basketball: one long exercise in problem solving. For a good, long stretch of Game 5, the Grizzlies and Gasol figured things out.

We had the feeling there would be plenty of Flop of the Night fodder in the playoffs. But we never dreamed that anyone would approach Chris Paul's performance in Game 4.

In what must surely be the most impressive and ambitious flop in the history of the NBA, during a dead ball situation, Chris Paul flopped on a ref!

After Memphis called timeout, official Mike Callahan moved to get between Paul and Memphis forward Dante Cunningham, who were having a little passive-aggressive dispute over who got to hand the ball to the official. Paul knocked the ball out of Cunningham’s hands, and as Paul went to secure it, Cunningham flicked the ball away with his foot.

Callahan swiftly went to separate the two, creating contact that somehow triggered Chris Paul’s flop instinct.

Paul’s head whip was enough to convince Callahan that the situation was escalating, and he called a double technical foul on Paul and Cunningham.

So to recap: It’s a dead ball. Chris Paul flops when a referee touches him. The referee calls a double technical foul.

Paul’s control over a basketball game is truly complete.

Meanwhile, on Twitter, the Clippers were cementing a floppy reputation.

LOS ANGELES -- There was a moment toward the end of the first quarter in Game 2 between the Grizzlies and the Clippers when Memphis walked the ball upcourt after getting beat in transition. As Mike Conley tried to deliver the ball to Rudy Gay on the wing, Zach Randolph barreled into Blake Griffin just inside the arc.

The contact caught Griffin off guard, and he stumbled backward like a fighter who’d been hit. Just as Griffin regained his balance -- now below the foul line -- Randolph delivered another elbow to Griffin’s torso, knocking the Clippers’ brawny power forward further into the paint.

Back up at the top of the court, Bobby Simmons denied that intended pass to Gay. Conley was fortunate to recover the ball and, when he did, he saw Randolph primed in the paint. Easy entry pass to Randolph, who took a single power dribble and muscled the ball up off the glass with his left for an easy layup. After staggering early, Memphis trailed by only five points.

The Grizzlies ultimately won the game and much of their success was attributed to pushing the Clippers around at will.

A playoff series develops certain storylines, and a dominant one to emerge from the Grizzlies-Clippers matchup has been physicality -- who is manhandling whom beneath the glass, in the paint and any other place on the floor where there's contact between opponents, which seems to be any arbitrary point between the east bank of the Mississippi River and the coastline of the Pacific Ocean.

Designated brute Reggie Evans said the Clippers got “punked” in his team's Game 2 loss in Memphis. Back in Los Angeles prior to Game 3, the Clippers posted a quote from commentator Charles Barkley on the locker room wall:

Other than Kenyon Martin, [the Clippers] are not a physical team … If I was coaching the Grizzlies, I would say "We are not letting them dunk." They want to get the "play of the day." They don’t want to be rough and tumble.

When the Clippers eked out a win in Game 3 by dodging a bullet at the buzzer, they claimed victory in the physical sweepstakes. "Overall, I thought we did a good job of being the more aggressive team," Griffin said. "That was kind of the plan, to be the aggressive team from the jump. That’s [the Grizzlies’] whole M.O., being aggressive, their whole ‘Grit ‘n’ Grind’ thing."

On the Memphis side, Rudy Gay was despondent after the game. Gay is a genial guy, but about as milquetoast as they come when it comes to declarative statements about team and individual performance. Yet he could hardly contain his frustration at the podium following Game 3.

"We're supposed to have a physical team," Gay said. "They took that away from us today. They pushed us. They did all the things that we usually do to teams. ... They really imposed their will on us tonight."

Evans might have struck the most balanced note after the game, one that acknowledged fewer instances like the one Griffin suffered back in Memphis, but stopped short of wholesale praise.

"We did pretty good, but we can still improve," Evans said. "We still have a little more work. We don't want to get too comfortable, too relaxed and too happy with the results. Even though we won, found a way to get a win, we still have to go back to the drawing board and see what we did wrong."

Evans understands that victory in the manhandling event tends to be assigned retroactively.

If Gay's last-second shot fell through the net, would he have bristled the way he did about the Clippers' seizing the mantle of schoolyard bully? Would the Clippers have been peppered with questions about whether their inability to control the trenches would be their undoing in this series?

"Physicality" is an ambiguous term whose definition changes player to player. When Evans was asked about it, he cited the offensive rebounding numbers. To Paul after Game 2, physicality meant Memphis' willingness to tug, pull and push him wherever and whenever he tried to navigate in the half court. Randolph's moments come when he and Griffin are wrestling for position.

And for Gay, it's about luring the opposing defense into illegal contact by being aggressive with the ball. For the Clippers, physicality doesn’t come without a price. They might have done a better job of holding their ground in Game 3, but they also let Gay and Randolph combine for 23 free throw attempts. There's smart physical and silly physical, and the Clippers simply can't foul Memphis the way they did on Saturday afternoon. Setting aside Memphis’ Game 1 exploits from the perimeter, the Grizzlies aren’t going to win this series from the perimeter. But they have big men who can stroke it from the foul line, and Gay has the capacity to turn a mediocre shooting performance into a charity drive, as he did in Game 3.

The Clippers can take down the bulletin-board material for Game 4. They did an acceptable job on the glass and Paul was more elusive to the Grizzlies behind the pick-and-roll. But there's still work to be done. Cutting down on the aforementioned fouls. Inspiring Griffin to leverage his big frame and plant a stake on the left block. Staying active on the glass. Fighting over those high picks for Conley.

The physical battle is usually portrayed as a bout, but it's just as much a game of wits. The Clippers worked harder in Game 3 -- and good for them. To take a decisive edge in Game 4, they now have to work smarter.

MEMPHIS, Tenn. -- Once the Grizzlies digested the Game 1 meltdown (come to think of it, they might not have been able to keep that one down), they went back to work, watched the film and likely came to a reasonable conclusion:

Memphis dominated the Clippers for 39 minutes on Sunday night.

If an NBA team defines success by their capacity to get the shots they want over the course of the game, Memphis achieved that for most of Game 1. If not for settling into their prevent offense, what Gilbert Arenas called "stalling," almost a four-corners style of play, this exercise might be a one-way exchange:

What do the Clippers need to do to get back in the series?

Chris Paul is aware of this dynamic. "I think Gilbert [Arenas] said it yesterday," Paul said. "[The Grizzlies] don't have to change anything. They beat the life out of us."

As good as the Grizzlies looked for three-plus quarters, they'll tweak their plan for Game 2. Meanwhile the Clippers have a ton of work to do to stave off the rigor mortis that afflicted them for most of the game:

Now starting at small forward for the Clippers against Rudy Gay...
Clippers coach Vinny Del Negro has been coy about his plans for the 3 spot in the Clippers' starting lineup, and for good reason. With Caron Butler lost to a fracture in his left hand, the Clippers have a couple of imperfect options. The first is journeyman Bobby Simmons, who hasn't seen much action lately. Simmons offers Del Negro better size against the rangy 6-foot-8 Rudy Gay. The Clippers staff likes Simmons' defensive judgment, but he's been an offensive liability, tallying a very sad Player Efficiency Rating (PER) of 6.06. He's shooting 31 percent from the field and doesn't get to the line.

After playing the role of co-savior on Sunday night, Nick Young would be the natural candidate if the Clippers wanted to throw maximum firepower at Memphis with their starting lineup. But both Young and Del Negro have expressed a comfort with Young's role in the second unit. He's a one-on-one player and inveterate shooter who best operates as a microwave in a less structured game. Over the course of the season, Del Negro has been inclined to maintain order on his bench and elevate better defensive options to plug holes in the starting unit. Don't be surprised if Simmons starts, but Young finishes.

This decision for the Clippers is less about Simmons-Young and more about Gay, who was able to find mismatches at will over the first three quarters. Time and again, Gay would zip off down screens and force the Clippers' big men to switch out. Or Memphis would go to their "Pistol action," which forces a mismatch for Gay against one of the Clippers' guards. Had the Grizzlies not collapsed and stayed true to what was working for them offensively, the headline Monday morning might have read, "Gay carries Grizzlies to Game 1 victory."

Work through Marc Gasol
The Grizzlies don't boast the most efficient half-court offense, but you never would've known it by their performance in the first quarter in Game 1. Memphis' best-looking offense originated with Gasol, both as facilitator and scorer. When he wasn't draining face-up jumpers, Gasol was distributing the ball. He dished out six assists, at least one to each of the other four Memphis starters. Gasol's gifts were a beautiful composite of what makes the Grizzlies offense tick: A high-low pass to Zach Randolph, hitting Tony Allen (twice) on baseline cuts, a pair of kickouts to Conley when the defense collapsed, and a well-run handoff play for Gay.

Whether the Grizzlies have Gasol flash to the foul line where he can act as the distribution hub on the offense, or they put him into pick-and-roll plays on the left side which will pressure the Clippers' big men to make decision, he's the catalyst for Memphis. They got away from late in Game 1 and it might have cost them the game.

Can Z-Bo be Z-Bo?
By his own admission, Randolph isn't 100 percent, and you can see it in his work down on the right block. When Randolph is right, he uses his feet and mass to put his defenders on their heels. By keeping his defender moving, Randolph is to create that layer of space he needs to get that sweet shot up, with his countermove if necessary. Right now, he's hesitating and Blake Griffin and Reggie Evans are standing their ground and denying Randolph that coveted space. That needs to change if the Grizzlies want to have that inside-out look. The aforementioned Gasol-oriented sets are vital to the Grizzlies' success, but so is the Randolph-based stuff. Randolph might not demand a double-team right now, but he can't allow the Clippers' big men to establish position -- and confidence -- in his kitchen.

Feed the big dog
Speaking of the inside-out game, the Clippers have some issues of their own to address. Griffin needs more touches in the post, not just for his own productivity, but to get the Clippers' half-court offense humming. Griffin has superior speed and athleticism to anyone in the Memphis frontcourt corps, and he must get ample opportunity to exploit that advantage.

Force the Grizzlies to either play Griffin straight-up or send a double-team, out of which Griffin is a capable and willing passer. Much of the Clippers' perimeter game is predicated on Paul's penetration, but plenty of good looks materialize with Griffin leveraging the defense. That's when the ball starts moving in the Clippers' offense.

"This is the way our offense is set up," Randy Foye said. "It's about where the trap comes from. [Griffin] posts up on that left block. When he turns middle, they collapse, and put him in a situation where they make him pass the ball. I move over the weak side to try to get open, and he knows where to find me."

The turnover game
It's the immovable object and the irresistible force. The Clippers ranked second in the NBA in protecting the basketball (thank you, Chris Paul) while the Grizzlies led the league in forced turnovers (thank you, Mike Conley). In Game 1, the Clippers were out of character, coughing up the ball 18 times in 91 possessions. Memphis generated 20 points off those turnovers, a bounty that sustained them for much of the game. Memphis will need a similar output against a team that's far more efficient offensively. They also need to keep the Clippers off the offensive glass. Memphis has been no better than an average defensive rebounding team all season, but letting the Clippers collect nearly a third of their misses is, for all practical purposes, a turnover in its own right.

MEMPHIS, Tenn. -- Any team that blows a 27-point, second-half lead will assume the role of league punching bag until it suits up for their next game, and the Grizzlies have absorbed plenty of hits over the past 48 hours.

The early stages of Game 1 seem like an afterthought now, but if you're the Grizzlies (or the Clippers), a screening of Memphis' first-quarter reveals a team that got anything and everything it wanted in the half court on Sunday night. And most of those play calls were focused around one man -- Marc Gasol.

The Grizzlies aren't a very efficient offensive team in the half court. They have trouble spreading the floor because none of their starters drains more than one 3-pointer a game (Mike Conley's prolific, outlying Game 1 explosion notwithstanding), and there isn't a single player on the roster who hits at better than a 38 percent clip from beyond the arc. Their big men provide a little stretch -- and that can create pockets of space -- but they can't fully stretch a defense.

The Grizzlies staff understands those deficiencies better than anyone. They've designed a half-court offense whose best sets force the defense into impossible choices by putting the ball into the hands of their most skilled practitioner, Gasol.

Here's my favorite Grizzlies set, one they used to jump out early on the Clippers in Game 1.

Please look at the pair of smaller panels on the left side of the frame. The possession begins with an angle pick-and-roll with Zach Randolph screening for Conley, the Grizzlies' point guard. Conley then dribbles right of the pick. As Gasol flashes to the middle, Conley hits him with a pass (It's worth noting that, in the third quarter, the Clippers ran so far under this action, that Conley chose to use all that space to launch 3-pointers at will).


Now we're at the main event, which you can see in the larger panel on the right side of the frame. This is where all the good stuff happens for Memphis.

Know what's impressive about this set? Once the ball goes into Gasol at the foul line, all five guys on the floor are viable scoring options. If Gasol has space, he has a clean turnaround jumper (3rd quarter, 10:15). Rudy Gay can slice, picking up a handoff from Gasol, and rubbing his defender off the big center in the process. Now Gay is on the move with the ball with separation from his defender. He can drive or, if he prefers, he can stop and pop (1st quarter, 11:00). If the defense helps off of Tony Allen in the right corner, Allen goes back door with an aggressive baseline cut to the basket, where Gasol hits him with a pass (1st quarter, 10:07). We've seen beautiful high-low passes from Gasol to Randolph, and if Conley is left alone on the perimeter, Gasol can kick the ball back out to him.

You'll also see the Grizzlies run this with different combinations of big men. Marreese Speights doesn't have the full toolbox Gasol has, but if he flashes to the foul line unaccounted for, the Memphis ball handler can hit him there for an easy face-up jumper. We saw this toward the end of the first period, a bucket that gave the Grizzlies a 34-16 lead.

So what happened?

"We got away from it," Gasol said. "We took too many good shots and we turned the ball over. That was our fault. [The Clippers] also did a better job of showing. So we stopped running it or I'd set the pick."

Which is one way you blow a 27-point lead.

In fairness, the Clippers made an adjustment. Their harder shows, as Gasol alluded to, made the pass from Conley to Gasol harder to thread. The Clippers also stopped helping off Allen, which slammed the back door shut and opted to lay off Gay, who can't do as much harm from distance. If instead of going into Gasol where he's so dangerous, Conley decided to shuttle the ball to his right with Gay at the top of the floor one-on-one, the Clippers can live with that. Most of all, Reggie Evans and Blake Griffin brutalized Gasol at that spot, not only denying the pass, but pushing Gasol farther out on the floor.

The Grizzlies will inevitably make a counter-adjustment. They're unlikely to shoot 69 percent from 3-point range again, and will need to manufacture quality possessions by leveraging Gasol's capacity to make good things happen from his preferred spot.

When Blake Griffin was assigned to the Los Angeles Clippers as the first pick at the 2009 draft, he moved through the usual rituals -- the handshake with David Stern, the donning of the cap, then his inaugural news conference as a member of his new team. With camera bulbs flashing like lightning bugs, Griffin fielded questions about joining a losing organization, one that lived in the shadow of its crosstown rivals.

Whatever he might have been thinking privately that night, Griffin said all that right things. The low expectations for his new team meant there was time to work and build a culture. He scoffed at a question about whether the franchise’s futility would affect his mood or mission.

“I know what’s happened in the past,” Griffin said then. “People keep telling me that, but I’m not just going to say, 'Oh, well, we haven’t had that many winning seasons so I’ll just give up now.'"

Nearly three years later, as Griffin prepares for his first postseason game, the Clippers are an organization whose culture has changed radically since his arrival. Griffin is partially responsible for the new vitality of the Clipper brand. His pyrotechnics, which began to attract real recognition in December 2010, helped the Clippers achieve cult status last season, even though they won only 32 games.

Griffin is a visual talent for a visual age, and his exploits are perfectly distributable on video platforms, which is where a fair number of us spend our time these days. His charisma has taken a peculiar turn this season, as he has become more polarizing -- but that pivot has also turned him into one of the league's lead characters.

Griffin's individual notoriety wasn't enough on its own to elevate the Clippers to relevance, but then Chris Paul arrived.

Like Griffin, the legacy of the franchise, its name, its past transgressions -- none of it fazes Paul. As far as he's concerned, the Clippers are the Los Angeles Pauls. The way Paul sees it, abstractions like history and superstition don't stand a chance against history if he's at the controls. He has accepted this franchise as his home, and that alone renders your snide comments and glib insults null and void. Ask him a question about the Clippers' storied futility, and he'll reject the whole premise.

Seriously. Ask him.

The Clippers now have two guys who have effectively rebranded the organization with their skills and appeal (or, perhaps for some, anti-appeal). After winning more than 60 percent of their games, the Clippers will take the floor in Memphis on Sunday night. As has been the case since the start of the season, nobody is quite sure what the threshold of success should be for the Clippers. Should their season be deemed a failure if they bow out ceremoniously to a quality Memphis Grizzlies team with home-court advantage? Or should a team with two superstars be disappointed with anything less than a conference finals appearance?

There's no consensus to these questions because we haven't figured out whether we should judge the Clippers' performance in the postseason through the lens of history or as just another NBA team.

For incrementalists, the outcome of the Clippers' playoff campaign isn't all that important in the larger context of the franchise's renovation. You don't cry if someone makes a dent while laying sheetrock for your dream home, one you hope to live in for the rest of your life. Even if the Clippers go quietly in a Round 1 loss, that won't nullify the accomplishments of the season. The Clippers are now a destination where superstars will set up shop, and where a young star can prosper as both player and persona. Ten years ago, Elton Brand heard nothing from the Clippers when he was eligible for an extension on his rookie deal. On July 1, 2012, it's a safe bet the Clippers brass will be on Griffin's doorstep at 12:01 a.m. with paper and pen to secure his services long term. Better yet, chances are that Griffin will sign that extension, which is no small thing. With Paul returning, the Clippers can pick up where they left off and continue the project. By next spring, a first-round exit a year earlier will be in the rearview mirror.

The counterargument is that this line of thinking is exactly the kind of defeatism that sentences bad franchises to eternal failure. You really think Paul cares about "larger narratives"? Have you watched him play? Paul cares about only one thing -- winning -- and any attempt to accept losing as a minor setback is silly. If you want to become a tent-pole franchise in this league, then act like it. No team worth its salt ever rationalizes losing. In fact, that's precisely how you delineate the Lakers from the Clippers.

For the past couple of years, the Clippers have been engaged in one of the most ambitious rebranding exercises in professional sports. That evolution won't be derailed by a first-round loss to Memphis, but there's a fine line between relevance and success.

The Clippers have claimed legitimacy. Now we'll see if they can win.

Blake Griffin has received his share of hard fouls this season. After Robin Lopez earned a Flagrant 2 and an ejection for collaring Griffin on Thursday, Griffin's teammate DeAndre Jordan vowed to protect his buddy. ESPN LA's Arash Markazi reported Jordan’s statement in practice the next day, when Jordan essentially said he would put the hurt on anyone or any team that went after Griffin.

"If Blake gets fouled, I can't go punch someone in the nose," Jordan said. “We can't do that but throughout the course of a game, other fouls happen to other players on the opposite team and if they happen to be hard fouls, they happen to be hard fouls. We're going to protect our teammates; it doesn't matter who it is."

Jordan was threatening to be the Clippers’ enforcer, a time-honored role in the NBA. Fortunately, this kind of threat has been on the decline since the league has taken steps to curb the violence in the game -- particularly fighting and fouls that endanger players.

But violence hasn't disappeared in the NBA, and the matter is complicated by the relative value of the players involved.

Consider that Robin Lopez has little value compared to Blake Griffin, so if Lopez had taken Griffin out of the game, it would have been a much more damaging blow to the Clippers, even as it was a Suns player committing the infraction. Or how about Sunday, when Metta World Peace was ejected for brutally elbowing star Thunder guard James Harden in the head -- though it wasn’t a part of the L.A. game plan, the exit of World Peace and Harden was a net gain for the Lakers, who eventually came back and won the game.

Clippers VP of basketball operations Neil Olshey has a HoopIdea that could lessen the incentive for NBA violence. He told ESPN’s Kevin Arnovitz that rather than simply ejecting the offending player, the team that is flagrantly fouled should have the ability to choose which player sits.

After the ejection of Lopez on Thursday night, the Suns still had all their top players on the court and eventually came back to beat the Clippers. In Olshey’s world, they would have had to do it without a star player: "I want Steve Nash to sit, not Robin Lopez."

In other words, Olshey thinks the stars should pay for the sins of the goon.

A player like Lopez or Jordan might be willing to sacrifice his ability to play to make a statement to an opposing star and team -- that's part of the job description. But would he be as willing to do so if it meant his own star teammate would have to sit?

On Sunday, Olshey's HoopIdea could have forced the Lakers to attempt their second-half comeback without the services of Kobe Bryant. If the league really wants to keep goons from running amok, punishing stars, and thereby their teams, for their goons' rough play is a good place to start.

The first half was an eyesore, as the Thunder led nearly the whole way despite a bevy of turnovers by both teams. Then the Clippers rallied back to drop the Thunder 92-77 on Monday, five nights after Los Angeles went into Oklahoma City and stole one on the Thunder's home court. The game was a revelation for the Clippers, and a nightmare for the Thunder after halftime.

• So many of the Clippers' wins this season have been of the lightning-in-the-bottle variety. Randy Foye will get hot from long range, or Chris Paul will emerge from the bullpen late in the fourth quarter and carry the team to an improbable win. A win is a win -- but the best teams in the league rely on reliable systems and methods to chalk up victories. The Clippers, on the other hand, have been masters of serendipity. But that wasn't the case Monday night, when the Clippers collectively identified Oklahoma City's weaknesses and attacked them. Playing a grown-up brand of basketball, the Clippers threw a steady stream of different defensive coverages at the Thunder. When the Thunder confronted their strengths with strength, the Clippers made reads and found workarounds. This is how mature basketball teams win big games in the NBA and, in taking out the Thunder with substance and savvy, the Clippers played up to their potential Monday. The pyrotechnics will explode at some point; the Clippers' challenge going forward is adopting a series of principles that will guide them when they don't.
• The turning point of the game came toward the end of the third quarter when Nick Young exploded for eight points in three possessions. Prior to Monday, Young had been terrible for the Clippers, failing to shoot over 50 percent from the field in any of his 17 games with the Clippers. That was largely a function of looking for the wrong shots in the wrong spots. But during this stretch of possessions, he played off the Clippers' primary action: the middle pick-and-roll between Paul and Blake Griffin. On the first shot, the Thunder trapped Paul, then the other three OKC defenders converged on Griffin in the lane. Griffin takes a lot of grief as a "one-dimensional" player. Ever seen him move the ball out of a triple-team? That's what he did there to find Young open for two. One possession later, Paul ran a little slip screen with Griffin. This time, Young needed some help, so DeAndre Jordan pinned Kevin Durant (Young's man) out of the play. Young was open for a 3-pointer at a spot a couple of feet deeper than the previous one. On the third possession, the Clippers ran that Paul-Griffin pick-and-roll one more time. Again, a trap and, again, Durant got caught helping middle (to pick up Jordan on a duck-in) rather than staying at home on Young. It's safe to say Paul is a guy who knows how to make hedging defenders look silly. He did here. In a flash, the Clippers shaved the Thunder's lead down to a single point. Young finished with 19 points on 11 true shots without a turnover. The swag was back, at least for a night, and a very opportune one at that.
• In their heyday, the Celtics got away with a lot of turnovers, largely because they were impossible to score against for long stretches of basketball. The Thunder have a reasonably efficient defense, but they can't continue to cough up the ball on nearly a sixth of their possessions, because a team like San Antonio or the Lakers -- or even the Clippers, who protect the ball well -- will punish them for it. Russell Westbrook, who scored the Thunder's first seven points, couldn't find his cutters in the first half, errors that resulted in a slew of turnovers. In the third quarter, Serge Ibaka couldn't make a simple entry pass into the high post, and Westbrook found a wide-open Vinny Del Negro for a kickout. All of it made for very bad news, as the Thunder couldn't get out of their own way.
• The Clippers started dabbling with the zone a couple of months back when their man-to-man defense was in shambles. The schemes weren't terribly effective, but you could see the faint sketch of something that could potentially work. The Clippers are quick and long, and they certainly had the potential to compensate for their lack of reliable isolation defenders by using their size and athleticism in the zone. Gradually, that zone defense has improved, and it hummed just before halftime. Jordan was everywhere, and the Clippers were quick to match up the instant the Thunder found a seam. I caught up with Chauncey Billups after the game to ask him about the Clippers' zone, which gave up only seven points in 13 possessions. Billups was miffed when Flip Saunders installed the zone in Detroit, because he took it as an affront to his Pistons' defensive capabilities. Zone, as Metta World Peace recently told me, was for teams that can't defend in man, and for a certain proud vet, the scheme still carries a stigma. "We looked at it like it was a weakness, like you couldn't stop anybody," Billups said. "But it's a good gimmick to change up a defense." The Clippers, with Jordan anchoring underneath in Chandlerian fashion, are making it work. The Thunder couldn't lay off the long jumpers (though Durant missed a couple of open ones from long range), or they drove recklessly into the teeth of the zone. No flashes, few cuts and little patience.
• Oklahoma City couldn't make sense of the Clippers' varied coverages. The Clippers ran under Westbrook on pick-and-roll plays -- but not the big man -- giving the eager point guard just enough rope to hang himself ... but not too much. The Clippers played Durant straight-up in isolation or in the post, with the occasional trap. Sometimes they'd switch when Durant came off the pindown, sometimes not. "The big thing was to make [Durant] catch as high as possible," Kenyon Martin said. "Sometimes out of timeouts we'd switch the coverage if we saw he was getting low, and sometimes we made a read." Durant shot 7-for-18 from the floor, and drained 10 of 12 from the line.
• Aside from the handful of lousy close-outs, the Thunder didn't play a poor defensive game. Their defensive pick-and-roll strategy can best be characterized as a "long show." The big man -- be it Kendrick Perkins or Ibaka -- stayed with Paul until the point guard gave up the ball, and this creates all sorts of confusion behind this quasi-blitz. The Clippers' wing would stagnate in the corner, while Griffin would shuffle around the high post desperately looking to provide a pressure release for Paul. More times than not, it worked, even against a menace like Paul. The Clippers point guard finished with 12 points (5-for-12 FGAs, 1-for-2 FTAs) and 10 assists. Not bad, but hardly destructive.

HoopIdea wants to #StopTheFlop. To spotlight the biggest fakers, we present Flop of the Night. You can help us separate the pretenders from the defenders -- details below:

Congratulations to or first repeat winner (or is it repeat offender?)!

There's no question Griffin's exciting, attacking style earns him plenty of legitimate bumps and bruises. But he's also earned his reputations for acting. Here he flops after hitting himself in the face following Chris Paul's game-winning layup.

This reverse angle is just the best because you can see that after untangling himself from Kendrick Perkins and managing to whack himself in the forehead, Griffin actually leaves his feet to sell this flop.

It's sort of genius. The officials always keep an eye on noted tough guy Kendrick Perkins, and if Griffin can embellish the contact enough to draw a foul in that situation, he gives his team the chance to go up by two possessions with under ten seconds to play.

Fortunately for everyone, that's not how the game was decided.

Nice work by ESPN's Arash Markazi to spot it!

When you see an egregious flop that deserves proper recognition, send us a link to the video so we can consider it for Flop of the Night. Here's how to make your submission:

• Alert HoopIdea to super flops with the Twitter hashtag #FlopOfTheNight (follow us on Twitter here).
• Use the #FlopOfTheNight hashtag in Daily Dime Live.
• E-mail us at hoopidea@gmail.com

LOS ANGELES -- It took less than 20 seconds, but the two plays produced the only lasting images from a blowout win between a team very much in contention and another very much not.

Eric Bledsoe raced a Sacramento Kings turnover to the other end of the court and lofted up a juicy lob for Blake Griffin, who proceeded to do what Blake Griffin does in times like these: springing up and throwing down. Next play, it was Bledsoe’s turn, as a Chris Paul-forced turnover produced an off-the-backboard alley-oop dunk for the zippy young point guard, sending the crowd into a tizzy and the game into a timeout.

As the benches rose to their feet -- one drunk on adrenaline, the other sobered by another impending defeat -- Griffin ambled to the sideline, his pace as deliberate as his intent, before spinning around and glaring off at the other end of the court, his sight transfixed until a teammate wrapped him up from behind with a bear hug.

The two plays are the lifeblood of these Los Angeles Clippers -- a collection of athletic wonders able to wow in a moment’s notice. But the aftermath is what’s come to define the player who unintentionally coined the term "Lob City" and brought life back to this organization.

The rather insignificant post-slam stroll probably wasn’t picked up by camera crews -- and if it was, it’s long since been lost among all the jubilation shots -- but Griffin’s reactions have slowly become bigger talking points than the plays he makes on the court. (And in a game in which Griffin was probably the best player on the court in the Clippers’ 109-94 victory Saturday, scoring 27 points on 12-for-15 shooting with 14 rebounds, one couldn’t help but miss a play or two while watching the burly power forward’s responses to calls.)

He hasn’t finished his second regular season, but Griffin has already become one of the league’s most electrifying athletes. Yet, after rising up as rookie to become one of the fresh faces of the league, picking up All-Star nods and endorsements and commercials along the way, Griffin has slowly embarked on a heel turn straight out of the WWE playbook (as first noted here).

Griffin still produces aesthetic gold on the court -- the kind of plays that YouTube was made for. And if anything, his highlights have only become more plentiful with Paul around, his dunks only fiercer. But the endearment that his game once elicited has soured some into a sense of entitlement.

When Griffin doesn’t get a call, he will often demonstrably throw his hands up, his mouth agape. When he finishes a particularly forceful dunk, he may shoot back an icy glare ripped straight from a pro-wrestling stare-down or smirk at his opponent as he jogs to the other end of the court. His teammates and coaches have attempted to curb some of his post-call behavior, and it has worked to some degree -- Griffin has, for example, taken to covering his mouth or yelling into his shirt instead of letting his emotions cost him (and his team).

But for the most part, these actions seemed engrained in his game, perhaps the product of the beatings he takes from defenders, a way to fight back from the countless times he goes crashing to the hardwood. And as a result, the witty guy off the court comes off as a little too smug on it.

So even though Griffin has one of the most fan-friendly games, particularly when games are whittled down to 30-second bites, watching him can be a bit grating for fans. And players as well, it seems.

Griffin’s attitude has been a topic of conversation throughout the season, mostly among fans and media, but it came to the forefront this past week, when two separate players took umbrage with his play. First it was Pau Gasol, the latest victim of some of Griffin’s vicious dunks who, along with Lakers coach Mike Brown, bristled when offensive fouls weren’t called on the Clippers forward in the Lakers’ 113-108 victory on Wednesday. And one night later the complaints came from DeMarcus Cousins, who took a more blunt approach: The Kings big man called Griffin an “actor” and told SI.com that referees and the league baby Griffin.

In his first public comments since Cousins’ remarks, Griffin put the humor he shows off in his Kia commercials to use, saying, “I first heard about it from my acting coach, he sent me an email. He was obviously thrilled. It was a compliment. I guess he’s seen some commercials and stuff and I appreciate it.”

Griffin is probably right to just laugh it off and go about his day (although he did manage to lob one back Cousins’ way, noting that “you have to consider the source”). Unless his antics draw whistles, his on-court crankiness does little besides make L.A.’s postseason-bound product a little less appealing to watch.

But Cousins and Gasol aren’t entirely wrong, either: While it’s hard to argue that Griffin is “babied” by refs, given the game-by-game punishment he takes in the post, he certainly benefits from his share of favorable calls (in particular, the one that sent Cousins off the deep end to begin with). And Griffin has made a habit of forcefully dropping his off-hand on some of his more memorable dunks, creating both a way to propel himself higher and return some of the force applied to him on his way up (a natural reaction with unintentional consequences, he’s said in the past).

However, these are only minor squabbles in a season full of them, throughout the league. Their comments certainly put a national spotlight on Griffin’s on-court demeanor -- Cousins’ comments alone overshadowing recent ugly performances by the Heat and Thunder -- but they may end up saying more about how players around the league perceive the rise of young stars like Griffin.

You have to crawl before you walk. You’re supposed to intern before you get that big job. And in basketball, like all other professional sports, you’re supposed to pay your dues. Although he lost his first season to a stress fracture, Griffin’s rise has come faster than few others before him (LeBron, remember, was already a star before he was even drafted). In an industry that’s known for codes of unwritten rules -- rookies, for instance, still must tote backpacks with cartoon characters on them -- that type of meteoric ascent may rub some the wrong way, particularly when the player announces his arrival with firecrackers rather than "earning" some star rights over time, the old-fashioned way.

“A lot of guys would love to be able to do what he does,” Paul said Saturday when I posed the theory to him. “Sometimes it’s other guys competing against him harder because they want that sort of same stature and status that he has. Sometimes it’s jealousy. You never know where it’s coming from.”

And therein another possible explanation: plain ol' envy. Or at least a level playing field.

Cousins certainly isn't the first player to be rubbed the wrong way by Griffin's behavior; less than a month ago, it was was former Kentucky teammate Patrick Patterson who was shelling out 25 large for ripping officials after a run in with Griffin. But it's no real surprise that, while others have made their grumbles away from microphones, Cousins lashed out. And not only because of his now-infamous temper (although, Vegas surely wouldn't have put up odds against him being the first to do so).

In his first two seasons, the 21-year-old Cousins has been painted as an anti-star. More specifically, the anti-Griffin. While Blake's game is easy on the eyes, his high-flying repertoire as Cirque du Soleil as it is sport, the lumbering Kings center's is more plodding, the countless hours of grinding out position in the post far less enjoyable for the every-day fan. And like Griffin, Cousins tends to complain a lot throughout the game; after jacking up midrange shots on the Kings' first two possessions, one made and one missed, Cousins made sure to let the officials know he had been nicked on the arm both times. Only, because of the bad-guy persona that has dogged him since before he stepped foot in the league, Cousins' bellyaching comes off as sharp, as if each outburst only further cements his image as a tyrant.

So while Cousins has quietly turning into one of the league’s best big men this season, with a player efficiency rating (21.87) to back it up, his breakout season has gone relatively unnoticed, a fact owed as much to the miniature market in which he plays as his uneasy image. (It took an up-close look to appreciate it myself.)

Griffin and the Clippers haven’t had that problem since Paul’s arrival.

“We’re on national TV a lot. We’re one of the top draws on the road. We’ve seen it every game now,” Vinny Del Negro said. “So a lot of things have changed -- a lot more exposure, a lot more tension. So maybe that has something to do with it.”

For the record, in each of the two times I’ve run into Cousins -- once before he entered the league and again during this weekend's visit -- he’s been easy to deal with, a guy who doesn’t seem to fit the image most conjure up when they think of the big lug.

But public perception means so much. Griffin certainly knows that now.

“I’ve heard that,” Griffin said with a smile when a reporter noted how polarizing he’s become. “It’s not something I embrace or try to do. It just kind of happens. I’ve seemed to have had a good week as far as that goes.”

You might’ve missed it, but the Clippers’ past two weeks haven’t been so bad, either. After losing three straight on the road and appearing on the brink of collapse, the Clips have strung together eight wins over the past nine games and positioned themselves a half-game behind the third-place Lakers in the Western Conference standings.

Griffin’s bothersome on-court antics will likely continue to irk fans and players alike. But as long as this team keeps rolling, those fun "Lob City" images will be the only ones that matter.

HoopIdea wants to #StopTheFlop. To spotlight the biggest fakers, we present Flop of the Night. You can help us separate the pretenders from the defenders – details below:

Blake Griffin isn't spending his second year in the NBA making friends. On Wednesday he punctuated his haymaker dunks over Pau Gasol with stare downs straight out of the WWE. Then last night, with his team leading the Kings by one and just over a minute left in the game, he drew a phantom foul on DeMarcus Cousins with this delayed, Shakespaerean reaction.

Griffin waits a full beat -- long enough to jab step -- before turning to the referee to plead for the call.

The crucial possession turned out to be Cousins' last of the night (that foul was his sixth) and the Clippers closed the game on a 9-2 run.

After the game, Cousins was none too pleased with Griffin's questionable tactics, saying Griffin, like actors generally, belongs in Los Angeles. "I guess the wind from my hand hit him in the eye and I guess he got fouled by the wind," Cousins told SI's Sam Amick.

It's plays like these that have contributed to the Clippers new, less flattering nickname: Flop City.

When you see an egregious flop that deserves proper recognition, send us a link to the video so we can consider it for Flop of the Night. Here's how to make your submission:

• Alert HoopIdea to super flops with the Twitter hashtag #FlopOfTheNight (follow us on Twitter here).
• Use the #FlopOfTheNight hashtag in Daily Dime Live.
• E-mail us at hoopidea@gmail.com