Clippers give Blake Griffin a lot of support in beating Knicks, 116-108

Reporting From New York —  His first trip to play at Madison Square Garden in the NBA brought out the inner tourist in Baron Davis many years ago, and he did something for the first and, probably, last time.

“I remember I took a picture at half-court and Paul Silas told me, ‘Don’t ever do that again,’ ” Davis said Wednesday. “I played about eight minutes and I was all pumped up. I was mad at him for a week. But I got over it.”

Needless to say, Blake Griffin wasn’t whipping out any sort of photographic device before he made his NBA Garden debut in the Clippers’ 116-108 victory over the Knicks, which ended a seven-game road losing streak.

“No, I didn’t do anything yet. I’ve got some ideas,” Griffin said, on commemorating his first Garden party, pronouncing the experience as “cool.”

Griffin was the one photographed before, during and after his 21-point, six-rebound performance against the Knicks. His New York debut had been highly anticipated since his breakthrough moment against the Knicks on Nov. 20 at Staples Center, a game in which he had 44 points and 15 rebounds.

But that was in a loss and Griffin declared that his glitzy statistics meant nothing without the win. Wednesday, he didn’t get the double-double, but he finally had some supporting scoring: a season-high 24 points from guard Randy Foye, 16 points and 16 assists from Davis, 18 points from Ryan Gomes and a season-high 17 points from DeAndre Jordan and 16 points off the bench from Eric Bledsoe.

Foye’s huge fourth quarter was the difference as he had 17 points and hit three three-pointers. The Clippers (20-32) nearly squandered a 20-point lead and let the Knicks get within three points with just under 4 1/2 minutes remaining.

“Coach just called my number,” Foye said. “Like I said, my mentality wasn’t to go in there and just take shots. I was just thinking about making the right play.’

Chapter two: Griffin vs. Amare Stoudemire was the focal point. Stoudemire had 23 points and tumbled to the court when he stepped on Griffin’s foot.

Griffin joked about the difference between their meeting at Staples Center and Wednesday: “Like 40 points or so. He’s extremely tough to stop. I thought we did a good job as a team, corralling him in different areas.”

Of course, Griffin didn’t go unscathed either. He ran into Timofey Mozgov’s hip and seemed slightly dazed and got a cut on the inside of his lip. Mozgov was the previous victim of one of Griffin’s fiercest dunks, to date, in the Staples Center game.

Griffin put down several highlight-type dunks, satisfying the dunk-seekers. But he said he didn’t feel pressure to top himself.

“Those plays, they happen,” he said. “It’s not something where I’m consciously going out every night, ‘OK, I’ve got to do this. I’ve got to do that.’ It just one of those things. When it happens, it happens. I would give up every single one of those plays for a win.”

Griffin enjoyed playing reporter in the locker room when there was a big crowd around Davis, interjecting: “Baron, what inspired that alley-oop off the backboard to yourself?”

Davis got a chuckle out of that one. He talked about Griffin’s learning curve in his rookie season.

“He’s learning and growing and recognizing double teams and how to find guys,” Davis said. “A lot of people give him credit for his dunks or his opportunities to score. They don’t really know how he sets guys up. He’s just going to continue to improve.”

lisa.dillman@latimes.com

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