Steph Curry shook Chris Paul to the floor and the should-be partisan Staples Center crowd went into a frenzy. That’s to be expected – fandom doesn’t apply to highlight-type plays of that caliber.
But what happened later in last night’s game between the Golden State Warriors and Los Angeles Clippers is legitimately concerning. As Curry went to the line with a chance to ice the game late, “MVP! MVP!” chants echoed throughout the arena.
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This wasn’t the only time during Tuesday’s Golden State victory that it seemed the Clippers were playing anywhere other than Los Angeles, but certainly the most noticeable. And the red-and-blue weren’t happy about it.
Here’s Blake Griffin after the game via ESPN’s Arash Markazi:
“Home-court advantage is just not there for us,” Griffin said after the game. “If that’s how it feels in the playoffs, it’s not looking good.”
[…]
“I don’t know what we could do, but it would be great if it wasn’t that way,” said Griffin, who had 40 points in the loss. “It’s kind of like when we play the Lakers. I don’t know, maybe worse. It’s one of those things where it would be great if it wasn’t like that.”
This isn’t the first instance this season of a Clippers star decrying his team’s lack of local fan support. After a home loss to the Chicago Bulls in November, Chris Paul said it “felt like a road game.”
Despite the club’s rise to prominence since Paul came aboard in 2011-2012, crowds at Staples Center are commonly and decidedly split when marquee teams visit Staples. Related: At 27-11, the Clippers have the second-worst home record among playoff-bound Western Conference teams.
And it makes sense. No arena rocks like the Warriors’ Oracle. Fans at the Oklahoma City Thunder’s Chesapeake Energy Arena are consistently raucous, as are the folks at American Airlines Center of the Dallas Mavericks. Home-court advantage has contributed to the San Antonio Spurs’ unparalleled success, and The Grindhouse and Clutch City of the Memphis Grizzlies and Houston Rockets were nicknamed for a reason.
But Staples Center? When the Clippers are on the floor, that is? Let’s just say teams don’t exactly fear taking the court in Los Angeles despite the presence of two of the league’s best players and a interior destroyer like DeAndre Jordan.
And as Griffin sadly indicates, it’s too late for that to change come the postseason, too.
