Clippers guard Crawford voted top reserve player

Jamal Crawford, who came off the Los Angeles Clippers' bench to lead all NBA reserves this season with 18.6 points a game, won the NBA Sixth Man Award on Thursday. Crawford, a reserve in 45 of his 69 appearances this season, also produced 3.2 assists and 2.3 rebounds a game with an average of more than 30 minutes on the court every night. It was the second career NBA Sixth Man Award for Crawford, who also took the honor in 2010 while playing for Atlanta, and the first time a Clippers player has ever been voted the NBA's top reserve. With Crawford's help, the Clippers went a franchise-best 57-25 and ousted Golden State in the first round of the NBA playoffs. The Clippers, who have had to deal with the distraction of racist comments by team owner Donald Sterling that led to his life banishment from the league, are level with Oklahoma City at 1-1 in their Western Conference best-of-seven second-round series. Only Crawford, Ricky Pierce, Kevin McHale and Germany's Detlef Schrempf have won the Sixth Man Award twice in their careers. Schrempf had been the most recent of those until Crawford, taking his second in 1992. Crawford received 57 first-place votes and 421 total points from a North American media panel, with Chicago's Taj Gibson second with 395 points and 49 first-place votes. Argentina's Manu Ginobili of the San Antonio Spurs was third with 138 points and nine first-place votes. The Clippers went 31-14 in games when Crawford came off the bench. On the season, Crawford scored 20 or more points in 29 contests, cracking 30 points six times, including a 37-point effort in a January 25 win over Toronto. Source: AFP