Lue infers Clippers are 'soft' as Harden questions team identity in loss to Pacers
Clippers couldn't keep pace with Indiana in fifth straight home loss.
LOS ANGELES — Some 30 minutes after the end of Monday’s game, LA Clippers assistant coach Dahntay Jones was respectfully asked to close the door to the room where home players and coaches do postgame media. The hallway outside of the room was loud with the sounds of clanking metal and the bustle of arena staff working to change the court to the one the NCAA Tournament will use during the West Regional Sweet Sixteen and Elite Eight.
Head coach Tyronn Lue was the one who put forth the request to Jones, who obliged and did as he was asked. If only the players did as such.
“Right now, do we have an identity?” Lue rhetorically questioned after being informed that minutes earlier star guard James Harden told select reporters in the locker room that the team had no identity. “I think, yeah, we’re soft. That can be an identity if you want to call it that.”
It’s perhaps the harshest thing Lue has said publicly during his four-year tenure as Clippers coach. Lue, often an outwardly stoic individual who prides himself on remaining calm as situations get tougher, appears fed up with the lack of cohesion and direction from his team.
Monday’s 133-116 loss at the hands of the Indiana Pacers was like so many of the Clippers’ recent follies — a period of competitiveness quickly snuffed out due to a lack of focus, attention to detail, and poor decisions. Even the return of guard Russell Westbrook wasn’t a panacea for the Clippers despite Westbrook playing well in his 18 minutes.
“You can’t pick and choose when you want to lead,” Lue went on to say during his lengthy answer. “You can’t pick and choose when you want to have identity. You can’t pick and choose when you want to do things the right way.”
If implying the team was “soft” was harsh, seemingly calling out players for not wanting to lead at all times, no matter what was transpiring, felt stunning — and important.
It’s perhaps the first time we’ve seen Lue get to this level. And from his perspective, it’s surely justified.
The Clippers have now lost five straight home games, and they’ve been uncompetitive in most of them. The losses are inexcusable for the most part. Blowing a 22-point lead to Minnesota on Mar. 12 was shocking. But what’s happened after seems infinitely worse — blown out against the depleted Hawks and 76ers before being thumped by the Pacers. The team’s last home win was Mar. 9, and they needed a double-digit comeback against Chicago to make it happen.
Home is not where the heart is for this team. As one coach told Russo Writes following Monday’s loss, maybe the team needs to just be on the road for a while, away from distractions and with a chance to bond as the playoffs grow closer.
Especially with the lack of identity taking center stage. Yet again.
“We gotta find our identity,” Harden said postgame, echoing a similar sentiment that Paul George put forth following the team’s loss against Atlanta on Mar. 17.
“Teams are scoring easy on us; makes it difficult to score offensively,” Harden went on to say. The guard isn’t wrong. Teams are scoring easy on them. Only the tanking Utah Jazz and Washington Wizards have a worse defensive rating since the All-Star break than the Clippers do.
When asked if it’s concerning that this late in the season multiple players are citing that the team has no identity and still trying to find it, Harden said: “It’s a little frustrating. Frustrating.” Harden would later confirm that this is the first time in his 15-year NBA career that he’s dealt with something like this.
“I mean, it’s frustrating to watch too,” Lue said postgame when told about Harden’s comments. “As much as they talk about [it] with the play, it is frustrating to watch at times.”
Kawhi Leonard and Paul George led the way for the Clippers on Monday night, each finishing with 26 points on 18 shots. Norman Powell provided 22 off the bench for a Clippers team that now sits 44-27 on the year and fell to the Western Conference’s 5-seed, tied with the New Orleans Pelicans but losing out on the head-to-head tiebreaker. The Clippers are only two games up in the loss column of the 7-seed, and the play-in, as a result.
Harden finished with 11 points and seven assists, his seventh straight game scoring under 20 points. The guard is averaging 15.6 points on 41.5% shooting across 12 games in March.
“I think we’re all trying to figure out what the hell is going on,” Harden told reporters.
Indiana got 31 points from Pascal Siakam en route to their 41st win of the season, further putting themselves into position to finish sixth in the Eastern Conference. Myles Turner dropped 24, including four 3s. Guard Tyrese Haliburton put up 21 points and nine assists while T.J. McConnell dictated play off the bench and finished with 15 points and six assists.
The Clippers’ issues clearly run deep. It goes beyond just one player or one coach or one game. There are only 11 games left in the regular season for a team that had championship aspirations but now is talking like a team unsure if they even want to continue on this journey together.
“You can’t get bored with the process and you just got to do it,” Lue said. “Just do your job. Whatever it is that we asked you to do, let’s do it.”
The Clippers have shown who they can be — both the good and the bad — which is what has made this group particularly frustrating to observe.
“We’re better than that and we’ve shown that,” Lue said regarding the team’s identity during their 26-5 stretch earlier in the season. “We just got to do our job, one through 15, and the coaches. We all just got to do our jobs. Do your job, [do] what we asked you to do.”
Lue’s job is going to be getting this team to still believe in themselves, even during this tough time of going 3-6 in their last nine games after being a season-best 20 games over .500.
“We definitely have an identity,” Lue went on to say. “But I’m tired of hearing that word. So just keep talking with the players. I have an identity and I know what the identity of our team is.”
The Clippers need to figure out how to turn things around, and fast. Or else that NCAA Tournament court being applied during Lue’s postgame presser will be the only specialty court on display in the coming weeks and months.
And the Clippers will only have themselves to blame for not finding their identity in time. Even if it is a word Lue doesn’t want to hear anymore.