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NBA ALL-STAR WEEKEND

February 19, 2011

Blake Griffin

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA

Q. Blake, whose idea was it to use the car?
BLAKE GRIFFIN: It was actually my idea to use the car. When they first came to me with the Dunk Contest idea, they said there was no rules. I was like, "So I can jump over a car?" Kind of playing around.
He was like, "Yeah." And I was like, "Oh, maybe I have to do it now." We actually didn't work on it at all. I got the dimensions and all that. Figured I could probably clear it and Baron came up with the choir and Kenny and they all put everything together.

Q. Coming into this, a lot of people felt that you were obviously the odds-on favorite. Did you feel any pressure to live up to that, or did you think you could, without performing magic?
BLAKE GRIFFIN: A little bit. You know, you hear a lot of stuff building up to it, so I think that the toughest thing, and we were all talking about that before the contest, all of the guys that were in it. Everybody wants us to do these things that are impossible. People are like do it between the legs twice. Obviously, I can't do that.
There's a little pressure on us to really put on a show but I thought those guys did a great job. Unfortunately some of us had to change our stuff around mid-contest because some guys used what we were going to do.

Q. Did that happen to you?
BLAKE GRIFFIN: Yeah, that actually happened twice. So that's why some of the stuff didn't look as planned.

Q. So which ones, can you tell us which ones that you had to change?
BLAKE GRIFFIN: I was going to do the very first one I did, and then I had to change the one that DeMar did, and then I had to change the one that it -- well it was kind of like the one that Serge did but a little bit different, a little bit varied.

Q. Vinny Del Negro was going to see what you were gonna do and maybe try to pop you out of things if it made him nervous. Did he have any reaction to what you did?
BLAKE GRIFFIN: When we still on our road trip, he called us into his room and was like so, what are you going to do in the Dunk Contest. He already knew what I was going to do, so I just played dumb and acted like, I don't know yet, man, I don't know. But then everybody came in and watched me do it on Thursday night, so I think everybody was kind of at ease with me jumping over the car.

Q. Are these risky moves? Are you taking any chances with your physical well being?
BLAKE GRIFFIN: With all of the dunks or the car dunks.

Q. You tell me. Either.
BLAKE GRIFFIN: I think the other dunks were fairly simple. But the car dunk, a little bit, I could have clipped my foot I guess, that's what I was afraid of, just clip my foot on the side and smash my face into the car. Fortunately it worked out. I don't know, I didn't really think about it like that. It's one of those things where I knew I could get over it so I just did it.

Q. Specifically with the car, how many times did you practice that?
BLAKE GRIFFIN: They brought the car in Thursday night when I had my rehearsal and I jumped over it and had Baron a couple times and that was it.
I actually wanted to do a little bit more with it in the air, but when it came down to it I didn't want to keep jumping over the car, I just went ahead and put it in.

Q. How does it feel as a rookie to be under such a big spotlight and being a part of All-Star Weekend the whole way through?
BLAKE GRIFFIN: You know, it's a little crazy. It's been an unbelievably crazy weekend, just nonstop, but at the same time it's a once-in-a-lifetime experience to be able to do all three things like that and I just wanted to have fun with it and take advantage of it and not get too bogged down with it.

Q. Have you thought about defending the title yet?
BLAKE GRIFFIN: I knew you were going to ask that. (Laughter). We'll see. I have to come up with something else, maybe a boat next year.

Q. How is your arm?
BLAKE GRIFFIN: Oh, it's all right. Just a little skin peeled off. I'll be all right.

Q. On your second dunk, time was ticking away. What was going through your mind on that one?
BLAKE GRIFFIN: I just wanted to do it, finish it. I didn't want to like rush and run around and act all panicked. Unfortunately it went down and that's actually not even what I was trying to do so it just worked out like that.

Q. Growing up, you watched the Slam Dunk competition and all that; did you ever envision that you would be up there jumping over a car?
BLAKE GRIFFIN: I never thought about the car, after I watched Vince Carter's I think I walked my bike out to the driveway and jumped over it for real, like on the eight-foot goal or whatever it was. Would I always do stuff like that as a kid, and I always envisioned myself being in the Dunk Contest, growing up watching it. So it's cool to be able to come out here and actually do it now for real.

Q. Was it just coincidence that you guys were also, I guess, prop-heavy and theatrical with your dunks?
BLAKE GRIFFIN: I think that goes back to a lot of things that are possible have been done, you know what I mean, so it's tough to come up with something that nobody has ever seen before. That's always the big thing, everybody is like, oh, it's going to be something nobody has ever seen but you kind of have to use props for that. It's kind of become -- it's kind of moved towards that.

Q. Was it your idea to put the choir together?
BLAKE GRIFFIN: No. That was Kenny's idea. I was actually going to jump over the choir separate from the car, and then, so, Baron was like why don't we do it together. So we had the choir like positioned around the car, and then people came in and said you can't cover up the car. (Laughter).
So we put the car halfcourt. So it went through a lot of different phases, but fortunately like I said it worked out.

Q. What kind of things was Baron emphasizing?
BLAKE GRIFFIN: He was just saying, don't try to be too fancy, don't try to put too much stuff in it. Just dunk it, people just want to see you just dunk it. That's what I tried to do. You try to put a little flair into it, but for the most part, I think his advice was spot on.

Q. What does this compare in your opinion to some of the greater Dunk Contests in history, this Dunk Contest?
BLAKE GRIFFIN: Oh, man, it's not -- I was kind of disappointed, just by some of my dunks didn't go as planned. But I mean, there have been plenty that have been better than the ones I did. I thought the other guys did a great job but personally I thought I could do a lot better. We'll see next year.

Q. Did you actually have to get permission from the Clippers to do that last dunk?
BLAKE GRIFFIN: Not really. I think they kind of wanted to watch. I noticed when I went in for my rehearsal Thursday night, everybody from the Clippers was there. (Laughter). All our upper management and then I realized, everybody is kind of nervous about this. So I jumped over it and I kind of looked at them and they are like, all right, you can do it. (Laughter).
I understand why, but I guess they don't trust me enough.

End of FastScripts

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