The Los Angeles Clippers fell short in their quest to get back to .500 on Friday, losing 125-122 to the Los Angeles Lakers at Crypto.com Arena. Clippers head coach Tyronn Lue wasn’t too happy with all the fouls being called in this one and took a shot at the Lakers players for foul baiting in his postgame press conference.
“Just got to play through it,” Lue said. “Keep competing, keep your head, you got to get through it. So, when you’re foul baiting the whole game, we run into it every night, it’s tough. These guys are already great players, and so it’s just tough to stop them at that point, but you know we did everything we could.”
There were some occasions in this game where Luka Doncic and Austin Reaves were hunting for calls. Doncic finished the night 8-11 from the line while Reaves was 7-7. The Lakers would go 20-25 as a team, but the visitors actually made more trips to the line.
The Clippers were 24-29 from the charity stripe. They’d argue they were aggressively attacking the basket for much of the night and deserved those calls. Bennedict Mathurin, in particular, was relentlessly going at the Lakers, and he would finish the night 11-14 from the line.
Mathurin would also end up fouling out in the fourth quarter, and like his head coach, he made it clear in his postgame media session that he didn’t think the officials called the game fairly.
“It’s hard, man,” Mathurin said. “You try to play hard, and the game kinda stops on one side of the court more than the other. So, kind of have to fight through it. I like it because it pretty much allows us to stay locked in… I feel like the players that we have on the court is all we got. So just pretty much staying locked in, staying together, was pretty much important tonight.”
Mathurin put up 26 points (7-16 FG), seven rebounds, and two assists against the Lakers here. He had poured in 38 points against the Denver Nuggets on Thursday, but wasn’t the star of the show for the Clippers in this one. That would be Kawhi Leonard.
Leonard had 31 points (11-19 FG), four rebounds, and five assists in 31 minutes against the Lakers. The two-time Finals MVP was looking unstoppable at times, but was forced to exit with 5:10 remaining in the fourth quarter due to left ankle soreness.
Lue didn’t have much of an update to provide regarding Leonard, but he was proud of how his team competed in the closing stages.
“That’s who we are,” Lue stated. “So, this group, we’re going to compete, we going to fight every night. And that doesn’t look like a f***ing team that’s trying to lose to me. We’re going to scrap every night, and that’s who we are. [John Collins] goes down, Kawhi goes out, Ben fouls out, and guys are still scrabbling and competing.
“Had a chance to tie it up with a shot at the end,” Lue added. “So I mean that’s who we are. And so if teams are going to play against us, they’re going to be in for a dog fight every night.”
The Clippers very nearly sent this one to overtime. With the Lakers holding on to a three-point lead with less than 10 seconds remaining, Nicolas Batum stole LeBron James‘ inbounds pass. Batum then got an open look from three, but missed. Still, it was quite commendable how these Clippers fought. They are not a team anyone would be too happy to face right now.
The Clippers dropped to 27-29 with this loss, and they’ll be up against the Orlando Magic next at the Intuit Dome on Sunday at 9 PM ET.
