Clippers' shocking loss Sunday leaves few answers to crucial questions
L.A. has gone 10-11 since their 26-5 stretch.
LOS ANGELES — It was supposed to be a day for James Harden to get some semblance of retribution against Daryl Morey and the Philadelphia 76ers. It ended as an inexcusable loss by the LA Clippers and the star guard leaving the arena without speaking to media.
The Clippers were spanked by the 76ers, never leading and trailing by 20 before having the plug pulled in the fourth. Sure, they battled back from a 17-point deficit to knot the game up in the third, but it wasn’t enough — and it hasn’t been enough over the last six weeks for this team.
L.A. is in a tailspin, looking like a team ready for a quick April vacation rather than a drawn-out playoff push. And it’s perplexed all who have seen them in recent weeks.
“We just got to lock in and focus,” Clippers forward Paul George said after the 121-107 loss that dropped the Clippers to 44-26 on the season. “I don’t think our focus has been where it needs to be on certain occasions, so we just got to lock in as a group.”
It seems confounding for a veteran team to have to be reminded to “lock in and focus.” But here we are, with the Clippers — a team filled with multiple players that have 10+ years of experience — having to say out loud that they need to focus.
Title teams, or at least teams who fancy themselves as title contenders, can lose focus from time to time throughout the long and daunting 82-game season. But to have a six-week stretch of whatever this is, is inexcusable.
Since Feb. 7, the Clippers have lost in embarrassing fashion to the Minnesota Timberwolves twice, with one of those coming after the Clippers held a 22-point first-half lead; drubbings at the hands of the Oklahoma City Thunder and Sacramento Kings; a blown 19-point fourth-quarter lead to the Los Angeles Lakers; and the last two home losses to the Atlanta Hawks and Philadelphia 76ers, two sputtering teams playing without their stars.
Just one of those losses should have been enough to force the Clippers to “lock in and focus.” Apparently not.
“It’s hard to judge where we need to be,” Kawhi Leonard said when asked how far the team is away from where they need to be for the playoffs. “But I know we need to just keep getting better and we will. We’re not playing our best basketball right now, but I think we are confident in it [coming soon]. We just got to stay at it and just take it one game at a time.”
If Sunday was any indication, they’re not even in the same stratosphere of where they need to be, and it’s hard to see how they close that gap with just 12 games to go and the steamrolling New Orleans Pelicans hot on their heels for the 4-seed.
“We know we got to play better basketball going into the playoffs or it’s going to be an early season,” Clippers coach Tyronn Lue said following the loss.
“So, [I] still got full confidence in this team and full confidence in what we can do and just [telling yourself], ‘I’m going out and doing it every single night’ — not every two minutes like we talked about, not 26 minutes, like 48 minutes of doing the right things, doing the right coverages, not having as many gameplan mistakes, getting back in transition. I think [Philadelphia] might’ve had 18 points in transition in the first half the way we chart it. So that’s not good enough, and so we just got to be better in that regard.”
The Clippers haven’t beaten a team that presently sports a winning record since they defeated Minnesota on Mar. 3. In fact, they’re 2-10 against teams with a winning record in the last six weeks. There’s losing and then there’s being uncompetitive.
When asked after the game if sitting players when they’re making gameplan and execution mistakes to get the message across to them that the way they’re playing isn’t up to the standard, Lue responded: “Yes, it’s a possibility.”
It’s a bit of a nuclear option. Benching someone, even for a minute or two, isn’t a small thing. There’s no putting the genie back in the bottle if you go that route.
“They’re grown men,” Lue went on to say. “They understand — we’re a veteran team. It’s not like we’re playing with second- and third-year players. And so, I’m never the type of guy that wants to show a player up or show that they’re making a mistake. I’d rather not do that because now it’s a story for you guys (the media).”
It would be a story, that’s for certain. It also might wake the players up to realize that the level of effort and focus that has been on display for the last six weeks is not acceptable.
George said after the game that the team’s “focus will be there” when the playoffs roll around.
That sounds all well and good, but it hasn’t been in recent games. Not on Sunday, not during the team’s previous home game against Atlanta, and not for the last six weeks. Focus isn’t something that can switch off for 21 games out of a season and then suddenly flip on when you need it. A game or two? Acceptable. A week? Understandable. Six weeks? It’s not a light switch issue anymore. The electric bill is due.
“They understand what the f—, they understand what they’re supposed to be doing,” Lue said. “But they understand, and so we just got to do better. We just got to do better all around the board. But we understand — if they come up here in the next two, three guys you interview, they’re going to say the same thing. And so I don’t know what to tell you, but like I said, I feel good about this team. I feel confident and [we] just got to wake the hell up and be ready to go do stuff hard. We’ve been practicing every day, shootarounds every day, so they understand. So, it’s time to start getting the ball rolling and yeah, that’s all I got.”
The Clippers were led by Kawhi Leonard and Norman Powell, who each scored 20 points on Sunday. It was Powell’s first game since Mar. 15 when he suffered a lower-body injury. Paul George added 18 and James Harden contributed 12 points and 14 assists but shot 5-for-13 from the field.
Philadelphia connected on 18 three-pointers as Tyrese Maxey and Tobias Harris led the way with 24 points apiece for a 76ers squad that moved to 38-32 on the season and had their first 20-point lead in any game since losing Joel Embiid to injury on Jan. 30.
L.A. plays the Indiana Pacers (40-31) on Monday night, and that could be another rough one for a Clippers team that is old and slow and seemingly uninterested in the dog days of the season. But good news is on the way as guard Russell Westbrook appears poised to return after fracturing his left hand on Mar. 1.
Still, Westbrook or not, the Clippers have questions they need to answer if they’re to look like a legitimate contender.
Namely, is the focus coming or is it all talk? We’ll find out starting Monday.