DeAndre Jordan is the Clippers’ rebound guy

The athletic and high-leaping DeAndre Jordan has started to use his immense talents to become a rebounding force in the NBA.

It has become his mission to use his 6-11, 265-pound frame to get every rebound in sight.

Jordan was second in the NBA in rebounding before Sunday night’s game, averaging 13.7 a game.

He was a rebounding beast for the Clippers during their three-game trip, gathering 51 rebounds, including 18 on offense.

Jordan finished the trip against the Rockets with 18 rebounds, seven on offense. He also had 14 rebounds at Miami, four on offense, and 19 at Orlando, seven on offense.

“Everybody has a role,” Jordan said. “We have guys who are scorers. We have guys who are defenders. We have guys who are role guys. I’m just playing my role.”

Because of Jordan’s effort on the backboards, the Clippers weren’t outrebounded in the three games.

Both the Clippers and Orlando Magic had 51 rebounds in that game.

The Clippers outrebounded the Miami Heat, 38-30, and the Houston Rockets, 45-42.

“I just don’t ever want to be outrebounded as a team,” Jordan said. “That was our problem last year. We gave up a lot offensive rebounds and it cost us some games. So, that’s definitely a main focus of mine this season.”

Clippers end trip right way

The Clippers had lost the first two games of their trip and were reeling in the third game at Houston.

But the Clippers got the win to finish the trip 1-2.

Was it a win the Clippers really needed for their psyche?

“I don’t ever say that,” Clippers Coach Doc Rivers said, “Because if we didn’t get it, what do we do? We can’t say, ‘OK guys, that’s it. We’re going to pack it in.’ I’m not going to do that.

“But, it was a good win for us. Too early for the need-win, but it was a good win for us. You didn’t want to go on this trip 0-3.”

The Clippers improved to 4-3.

“I didn’t want to go back home 1-2,” Chris Paul said. “But we didn’t have a choice. We needed to win this one. It’s already been a tough trip for us and this would have been horrible. It’s a Western Conference team. It put us back over .500 after seven games.”

Rivers said the trip also taught him about the difficulties of traveling from the West Coast to the East Coast for a game.

“I thought I made some mistakes there just as far as changing our schedule a little bit better,” he said. “I thought we started out bad. Just the rest factor. I shouldn’t have had a shoot-around in Orlando. I’m just learning the East-West, West-East. When I thought about it, I think we had a 10:30 [a.m.] meeting [Wednesday]. That’s 7:30 on our body clocks. Our shoot-around was awful. It was 7:30 in the morning to [the players]. So I learned a little bit as well on this trip.”

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