LA Clippers Highlights to Get You Pumped Up for 2014-15 Season

The preseason is underway, Los Angeles Clippers optimism is in full swing and it's time to get ready for another season of basketball.

Another season of Blake Griffin dunks. Another season of DeAndre Jordan blocks. Another season of Clipper Darrell suits. 

So to prepare for all that, let's take a brief look back at some of the best Clippers plays in recent history.

No, we're not digging back to the Bob McAdoo-Buffalo Braves days or even to the more recent Sam Cassell ones. We're staying in modern history, looking back on the first few seasons of the Chris Paul era, none of which have ended with a deeper playoff run than last year's six-game, Western Conference Semifinals loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder.

Coming off a franchise-record 57-win season, the Clippers will possibly send out a better (and healthier) roster in 2014-15 than ever before. Here are some plays to get you hyped.

Crawford Breaks Wes Matthews' Ankles...Twice

There's a reason they call him J. Crossover. Wes Matthews is now fully aware of it.

Clearly, there are plenty of crossovers to use as an example of Crawford's pristine handles, but this one stands out if only because Crawford crossed up Matthews twice. 

The Clippers' sixth man dribbled right and caught Matthews off balance. He could've put up a shot there. Instead, he figured he'd make sure Matthews' ankles were fully broken. Crawford let Matthews reset and switched from right to left as his defender lunged forward, setting himself up for a wide-open shot.

Jamal, no one is more fun than you.

Crawford Finds DJ

We know Crawford for his crossovers, his crazy, off-balance shots and the four-point plays. As a rule, we don't always think of passes when we hear his name. This play proves that rule wrong.

Crawford flashed some of his usual pizzazz, going behind the back as DeAndre Jordan cut baseline for a jam. Crawford then faked a potential behind-the-back pass only to throw up what can only be described as a Kareem Abdul-Jabbar-style skyhook lob to DJ.

Jordan, as he always does, dunked it down as hard as possible. 

The Through-the-Legs, Windmill Alley-Oop

Speaking of throwing down hard, Blake Griffin likes to dunk, in case you didn't know that.

There is a litany of Griffin dunks on the Internet, enough to make its own obnoxiously long slideshow. He's turned names into titles: The Mozgov Dunk. The Gallinari Dunk. The Perkins Dunk. The Gasol Dunks.

This one wasn't on anyone, but it may be just as exciting if only for Crawford's between-the-legs, pre-lob move. It's the epitome of Lob City.

Too Much Griffin

You didn't think that was the only Griffin dunk you were going to see here, did you?

Like I said, we can't pick just one slam from the Flyin' Lion, so here's 10 of them. 

Good Morning, Good Afternoon and Good Knight

You know a dunk is good when the Internet blows up with tweets, GIFs, YouTube clips and memes immediately following. You know it's great when those tweets, GIFs, YouTube clips and memes are jokes about the guy who was dunked on being dead.

The hashtag #RIPBrandonKnight was legitimately trending on Twitter postmortem. There were tombstones. There were Mufasa jokes. Even Knight himself was getting in on the Internet fun. 

The basketball world was rubbernecking DJ's dunk on Knight. And why not? It may have been the play of the 2012-13 season.

The Backflip Finish

The Clippers led by just three points with under a minute to go in Game 7 of last season's first-round series against the Golden State Warriors. With the ball, they could either sink a dagger or give the rock back to one of the NBA's top shooting squads in a one-possession game.

Blake Griffin elected to take care of the former. He dribbled left, went straight to the hoop and threw up a circus shot. And-1.

The backflip after the make may have been the most impressive part.

The Comeback

This one's not exactly recent, but it's probably (definitely?) the most exciting quarter in Clippers history. 

Down 24 points at the eight-minute mark of their first playoff game of the Chris Paul era, the Clippers found themselves on the verge of falling to the Memphis Grizzlies. But then fate stepped in—and fate's name is apparently "Nick Young."

The Clippers would eventually win this series in seven games.

Moral of the story: Sometimes guys who have so much confidence that they're always happy to shoot actually earn that confidence. If anyone predicted a team with Griffin and Paul would boast playoff heroes named Young and Reggie Evans after one game, I'll happily buy that person a drink.

Paul's Game-Winner

More playoff games. More Grizzlies. More game-winning buckets for the Clippers.

This time, it was Paul who hit the shot, a buzzer-beater to give the Clips a 93-91 victory in Game 2 of the team's 2013 first-round series with the Grizzlies (and doesn't it seem like the Clippers are bound to play the Grizzlies or Warriors again this year?).

In the end, Memphis got the better of the Clippers this time. After L.A. prevailed in seven games during the first round of the 2012 playoffs, the Grizz bit them in 2013, reeling off four straight victories after falling down 2-0.

DJ's Block Party

Want to get excited about a particular player for the upcoming season? Look no further than the man who finished third in Defensive Player of the Year voting last season, DeAndre Jordan.

Sure, Jordan improved massively throughout last year, leading the league in rebounding and field-goal percentage while finishing third in blocks per game. But the 26-year-old still has so much more room to get better. 

Above are some highlights from his playoff series against the Golden State Warriors last spring, a series in which Jordan averaged 12.1 points, 15.1 rebounds and 4.0 blocks on 75.7 percent shooting. If he can bring that sort of energy to 2014-15 (a contract year for him), the Clippers defense could be scary.

More Commercials

We've seen Griffin in countless commercials, and as the NBA season comes there are bound to be more.

He's poked fun at his free-throw shooting. He has, in the most meta way possible, jeered himself for acting in so many commercials while actually acting in a commercial. Then he's continued to make more.

One of the better time-killing sports debates of today would be picking the better actor-athlete: Griffin or Peyton Manning.

Right now, Manning probably has the edge. He has experience on his side with far more years of commercials. Plus, he has the most impressive item on either resume, holding the title for best athlete Saturday Night Live host of all time. But that being said, is there any current athlete more likely to host SNL one day than Griffin? 

Blake's gunning for Manning to become the G.O.A.T. of actor-athletes.

Fred Katz averaged almost one point per game in fifth grade but maintains that his per-36-minute numbers were astonishing. Find more of his work at WashingtonPost.com or on ESPN's TrueHoop Network at ClipperBlog.com. Follow him on Twitter at @FredKatz.

Unless otherwise noted, all statistics are current as of Oct. 13 and are courtesy of Basketball-Reference.com and NBA.com.