Losing Streak Stretches to Six Despite Positive Signs From Clips

The Clippers dropped to 3-7 after squandering late lead.

It has been a House of Horrors for the LA Clippers whenever they travel up to Denver and its lung-crushing altitude. To find the last time the Clippers won in Ball Arena, you’d have to go all the way back to Christmas … 2020.

That streak continued on Tuesday night as the Clippers dropped to 3-7 after squandering a seven-point lead with six minutes to play, losing 111-108 to the Denver Nuggets (9-2).

On the surface, a three-point road loss in Denver isn’t the worst thing in the world. It’s a fortress for the Nuggets, and dragging them to the wire in their own building can be seen as a step in the right direction for a Clippers team that is toiling under the weight of massive expectations following a trade for guard James Harden.

But moral victories don’t get tabulated in the season standings, and the Clippers are now lagging behind in both the in-season tournament and the regular season.

The Clippers have, for the most part, been eliminated from the NBA’s in-season tournament. They sit 0-2 with a minus-22 point differential in Western Conference’s Group B. They’ve already lost the head-to-head tiebreaker to both the Denver Nuggets (2-0) and the Dallas Mavericks (1-2) while games against the Houston Rockets (1-0) and New Orleans Pelicans (1-1) still await them.

To top the group, the Clippers would have to win out and every other team would have to finish 2-2 and the Clippers would have to turn that ghastly point differential into an overwhelming positive by winning in substantial blowouts over both the Rockets and the Pelicans. In other words: they’re done.

The in-season tournament doesn’t matter when looking at the Clippers as a whole, but it does help paint a picture of why they are where they are.

In their tournament opener against Dallas, they watched as Luka Doncic eviscerated the Clippers for 44 points on 17-for-21 shooting. On Tuesday, Denver’s Nikola Jokic went for 32 points, 16 rebounds, and nine assists in 36 minutes. Jokic only shot 8-for-23 from the field but was a perfect 14-for-14 from the line.

The other team’s stars are delivering. The Clippers’ leading men? Not so much.

Kawhi Leonard had 26 points against Dallas but regressed to 15 on 5-for-14 shooting against Denver. Paul George dropped 35 points against the Nuggets, but it came after having just eight on 3-for-12 shooting against the Mavericks.

Game-to-game consistency has been hard to find for the Clippers’ two best players since the trade for Harden.

Tuesday night represented the team’s sixth consecutive loss and marked the first time in Leonard’s illustrious career that he’s lost six games in a row. In fact, Leonard had never lost more than four games in a row before this season. That includes high school, college, and NBA.

Since acquiring Harden, Paul George has had, in order, games of 10, 24, 8, 26, and 35 points. He’s shooting 38.8 percent in that time. Leonard has had games of 18, 17, 26, 14, and 15 points. The forward has shot 44.2 percent in those five games.

The two stars have had their moments, but that’s all they’ve been: moments.

It’s been the same for both Harden and Russell Westbrook. The two guards are trying to figure out their standing within the team structure, and Tuesday night showed the pros and cons.

Westbrook shot poorly, just 4-for-12 from the field, but supplied good energy and was part of the group that made a run early in the fourth to bring the Clippers a lead. But Westbrook has put up 17, 13, 14, 12, and now eight points in the five games this group has been together. He’s shot 41.8 percent overall and gone 3-for-14 on three-pointers.

Harden’s five-game stint has been efficient compared to the rest of the group. The guard is shooting 47.1 percent from the field in his first five games with the team. Although, Tuesday night represented the first time he’s surpassed the 20-point mark since the Clippers acquired him. Harden finished with 21 points, four assists, and two rebounds in 36 minutes. But Harden also took just one shot after checking back in with about five minutes to go.

Clippers coach Tyronn Lue said postgame that Tuesday’s outing “was the most comfortable” that James Harden has looked “since he's been here.”

To that point, Harden came into the game having had zero field goal attempts within three feet of the rim since joining the Clippers. On Tuesday, Harden got to the rim five times, making three of them. That’s a step in the right direction.

And that’s all this has to be for the Clippers: incremental steps in the right direction.

They’re not going to turn this around in one fell swoop. It’s going to take several small steps leading to one giant change.

Another positive step on Tuesday was the continued success of five-out lineups that featured Norman Powell. The Clippers went plus-3 in the 16 minutes that Powell got to spend without a center on the floor. It might not seem like much, but the Clippers had success with that grouping in Sunday’s loss to Memphis, so doing it against the defending champions should be seen in a positive light.

Over the last two games, Powell has scored 34 points on 11-for-20 shooting. For the season, the guard is shooting 45.5 percent on three-pointers. Anything that gets Powell into the lineup and lets him fire from deep in catch-and-shoot settings is a positive.

Then there was veteran PJ Tucker.

Tucker hasn’t excelled with the Clippers as of yet, but Tuesday night was probably the best he’s looked. The Clippers won the 14 minutes that Tucker spent on the floor without a big man, albeit by one point, and that spacing provided him with ample opportunity to shoot. Tucker made two of his three long-range attempts, finishing with six points and five rebounds in 21 minutes.

Mix in Terance Mann getting a second-half stint of 16 minutes and 35 seconds, his longest prolonged run since making his season debut following an ankle injury, and there are positives to be taken from a loss.

Now, it’s all about stacking those positives and turning them into a win. They’ll have a chance to do that on Friday as they meet the Houston Rockets (6-3) in yet another in-season tournament game.

Perhaps the next positive step will be taken on that night: a much-needed win.