The Los Angeles Clippers slumped to yet another defeat on Monday night, losing 133-116 to the Indiana Pacers. After the game, head coach Tyronn Lue was asked about the team’s identity and he didn’t pull any punches.
“Right now do we have an identity? I think, yeah. We’re soft,” Lue said. “That can be an identity if you want to call it that. We got to be tougher, mentally and physically. But we do have an identity. When we were 26-5, we had a great identity. You can’t pick and choose when you want to lead. You can’t pick and choose when you want to have an identity. You can’t pick and choose when you want to do things the right way. And so just do the right things every night and everything else will fall in order. Guess we do have an identity, we got to go back to that.”
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The lack of an identity is something the Clippers have spoken a fair bit about recently. James Harden said after this loss that they don’t have one and earlier this month, Paul George also said the Clippers don’t have an identity. Lue thinks it’s all about doing the right things on a nightly basis and his team has struggled mightily in that regard.
The Clippers are 8-10 post the All-Star break and have now slipped to fifth in the West with a 44-27 record. The biggest reason for their struggles? Well, it is clearly the defense. The Clippers have a defensive rating of 118.7 since the break, which ranks 28th in the NBA in that time. The only teams worse off than them are the Washington Wizards and the Utah Jazz.
That woeful Clippers defense allowed the Pacers to shoot 58.1% from the field and 60.7% from beyond the arc on Monday. You are almost certainly going to lose any game in which your opponent is scoring at that rate.
I doubt anyone saw this Clippers collapse coming. This was a team that had won 26 out of 31 games from Dec. 1 to Feb. 5. They sat atop the standings in the Western Conference on Feb. 6, but are now looking like a shadow of that team. Unless Lue can quickly figure out a way to steady the ship, a season that promised so much is going to end disastrously.
Tyronn Lue Went Off On His Team After They Lost To The 76ers
This loss to the Pacers was the second straight defeat for the Clippers, having lost to the Philadelphia 76ers on Sunday. Their head coach was not at all pleased by what he saw on the court that night either, as Lue blasted the Clippers roster after the loss to the 76ers.
“They’re grown men. They understand, It’s not like we’re playing with second or third-year players. I’m never the type of guy who wants to show a player up or show them that they’re making a mistake. I’d rather not do that. That’s a story for you guys. They understand what the f—…They understand what they’re supposed to be doing. We just gotta do better all around the board.”
The 76ers were, of course, without Joel Embiid and the Clippers still couldn’t get the better of them. You thought they would respond to that loss with a strong performance against the Pacers, but that didn’t happen. The Clippers now get to face the 76ers again on Wednesday and another defeat would be very damaging.
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