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Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Blake Griffin dunk rattles Thunder


Blake Griffin has become known in his short NBA career as a high flyer. Monday night’s performance added to his already sterling reputation with an emphatic one-handed throwdown over Oklahoma City Thunder big man Kendrick Perkins. As Cindy Boren
It’s being called the Dunk of the Year by no less than LeBron James, who threw down his own contender on Monday night.
This one comes courtesy of Blake Griffin, who is compiling quite the little career highlight film. In the third quarter of the Los Angeles Clippers’ 112-110 victory over the Oklahoma City Thunder, Griffin — there’s no other way to say this — MozgovedKendrick Perkins.
Perhaps this will replace Tebowing...which isn’t a good thing for Timofey Mozgov, who, as a member of the New York Knicks, was the previous victim of Griffin’s most-hightlight-worthy dunk.
“Almost a Mozgov,” Clippers broadcaster Ralph Lawler said. “It’s better than a Mozgov!” his broadcast partner, Michael Smith, contended. ”I didn’t think it was possible to top him.”
The dunk on Perkins wasn’t the full Mozgov, Griffin said, because his “fingers hit the rim.” (Watch them here and compare.) DeAndre Jordan was “shocked” and he plays on Griffin’s team. “I didn’t know what to do, so I just grabbed him. I hit him kind of hard. I’m going to go home and watch it again. It’s probably going to be the screensaver on my phone.”
It set Twitter on fire, that’s for sure.
For some fans who see dunks every day in the roundups of NBA highlights, the Griffin dunk transcended the daily barrage of throwdowns and set a new bar for in-game dunking. As Tracee Hamilton wrote:
I’m no dunk groupie. I don’t gasp and moan at ESPN’s daily highlights, the windmills and the behind-the-backs and all the other usual antics the film drones in Bristol manage to dig up (although I admire their diligence in finding them all, from the NBA on down to middle school games).
But what Blake Griffin did to Kendrick Perkins Monday night? I want the poster. I want the DVD. I want the movie rights. I want the Fathead. I want it as a screen saver. I would like it as a ring tone, even though it wouldn’t ring.
That’s Griffin’s best in-game dunk, and therefore his best dunk. Griffin’s dunk over the Kia at the All-Star Game a year ago was fun, but it was contrived, rehearsed, and done without a hand in his face — no, on his face, look at the replay, it’s not like Perkins did nothing.
And I loved it because it wasn’t done for show. It came naturally in the flow of the game, off a nice bounce pass from Chris Paul, who was acquired in part to do just that. In other words, it wasn’t a bounce off the glass to himself. (Ahem.) And it came against the best team in the NBA.
Of course, a dunk is still a dunk. It’s two points, no matter how jaw-dropping. And a dunk used to be something special; now it seems everyone can do it. In the winter, the Top 10 Plays on “SportsCenter” is literally littered with dunks. Which seems to cause more dunks, somehow — Top 10 Plays is the Johnny Appleseed of dunking.

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