DETROIT – The “M-V-P! M-V-P!” chants tend to break out randomly and with varying degrees of merit across the NBA these days. But the first such chant for Blake Griffin, growing to a groundswell at Little Caesars Arena with 3:09 left in regulation and the Pistons trailing by a point as Griffin stepped to the foul line, wasn’t so easily dismissed.
Griffin’s two free throws to put the Pistons in front gave him 41 points, his ninth career 40-point game and his first since being traded to Detroit last winter.
By the time his three-point play with 1.