Things are not going well Clippers to land. After losing to the Pacers 133-116 Monday night, not only was it their sixth loss in their last nine games, but it put them under New Orleans Pelicans in the Western Conference standings in fifth place. This was an important game to win to keep some space between them and the Pelicans, and instead of protecting the court, Los Angeles fell behind Indiana by as many as 23 points and is now at outside to seek home-court advantage for the playoffs.
After the game, Clippers coach Ty Lue spoke about the team’s loss and recent struggles, and he didn’t mince his words.
“So identity for us must be hardness”, Lue said. “Which means physicality, mental and physical strength, powerful attack – we can score in different ways – and we have to have a defensive mindset. And so right now, do we have an identity? I think , yeah”, we are soft. It can be an identity if you want to call it that. We have to be tougher, mentally and physically. “
The Clippers’ play of late has been a complete 180 from the team that entered the All-Star break at 36-17 and sitting in third place in the Western Conference. But since then, the Clippers have posted the 11th worst record in the conference at 8-10, and all these defeats are finally starting to impact the playoff rankings. Lue pointed out how differently his team was playing at the start of the season compared to now and vowed things would change.
“We have an identity, when we were 26-5 we had a big identity,” Lue said. “You can’t choose when you want to lead. You can’t choose when you want to have an identity. You can’t choose when you want to do things the right way. So just do the right things every night and everything the rest will fall into place. So, I guess we have an identity, we have to go back to it, because we had it. But when you lose games, it’s easy to go the other way and we’re not going to do that. I’m not going to let our team do that. I’m a tough mind, I’ve been through everything and so have these guys. So the only way we get out of this is playing hard for 48 minutes.
A number of reasons have contributed to Los Angeles’ recent struggles, but the biggest problem has been the defense. Before the All-Star break, their defense ranked around the league average at 13, allowing 114.3 points per 100 possessions. Since the break, however, they have plummeted to 28th. Specifically, their 3-point defense has been abysmal since the mid-February break, allowing opponents to shoot nearly 41 percent from beyond the arc. That mark ranks 29th in the league, and against the Pacers, that porous perimeter defense was on full display as Indiana shot a ridiculous 60.7% from deep. This could be considered an outlier, as the Pacers got hot from long range in this game. But their loss before that to the Joel Embid-less Sixers — a team ranked 20th in 3-point percentage — shot 48.6% from deep, blowing Los Angeles 121-107.
You could say that teams have been warming up against the Clippers lately, but Los Angeles has had some truly uninspiring performances as of late. Six of their seven wins in March came against teams with losing records. It’s not the ideal time for the Clippers to be heading to the finish line, especially when a matchup against the Pelicans – who are 3-1 against the Clippers this season – is inevitable in the first round of the Western playoffs.
Perhaps Lue’s blunt words after Monday’s loss will be enough to revive an underperforming Clippers team with just weeks remaining in the season. Otherwise, they could fall even further in the standings, as the sixth-place Kings and seventh-place Mavericks are just two games behind them.
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