Clippers after deadline: Blake Griffin takes the fourth

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Blake Griffin didn’t quite take the ball and tell everyone else to get out the way in the fourth quarter.

Not quite.

But the Clippers’ rookie power forward essentially pushed through it all, past the sloppy play and a very ragged game and took over in the final quarter, when he scored eight of his 22 points in the Clippers’ 94-90 victory over the Raptors on Saturday night.

“He is such a machine when it comes to second-chance efforts,” center Chris Kaman said of Griffin. “And rebounding and finishing around the rim. There’s not a lot of people who can do what he can do. It’s a bonus for us anytime you have a guy like that. He’s young and he doesn’t care. He goes in there, finishing over the top of whoever is in the way.

“He’s just going to get better at it, more crafty and figure out different ways to score. For us it’s a huge bonus at the end of the game when you have a guy like that.”

Said Griffin: “I really tried to work into becoming a better fourth-quarter player, and better player down the stretch. That’s when games are won and lost. It takes time. It takes experience. It’s something you have to do and my teammates were finding me in the right spots.”

--Lisa Dillman