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LOS ANGELES – The LA Clippers are quickly slipping, and it's coming at a time when the rest of the Western Conference is starting to find its footing. Tyronn Lue looked as discouraged and disappointed as he has all season. His club has now lost nine of their last 12 games, and with a grueling schedule in the near future, it could get a lot worse.
Saturday afternoon included a drubbing at the hands of the Memphis Grizzlies. While Memphis is a good team, they were down four starters in Ja Morant, Kyle Anderson, and Steven Adams, while Dillon Brooks left the game after seven minutes of play with an ankle injury.
The Clippers built a 44-35 lead early in the second quarter, but allowed Memphis to close on a 31-12 run led by Jaren Jackson Jr. and Desmond Bane. Those two poured it on in the second half, finishing as the team's leading scorers en route to a 123-108 victory.
The same mistakes that have plagued the Clippers all season plagued them again Saturday afternoon. They gave up 16 offensive rebounds for 21 second-chance points, allowed 58 points in the paint, and turned the ball over 13 times for 23 points.
Head coach Tyronn Lue took longer than usual to arrive at the podium, and when he did, appeared more frustrated than he has all season.
“Do you feel like you’re reiterating the same things?” Tyronn Lue was asked.
“Yeah I do,” Lue responded.”
“Is it frustrating that it’s not changing.”
“Yeah it’s frustrating.”
“How do you engineer change?”
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“Nobody’s doing any better so it don’t matter if you sub or not,” Lue responded with a scoff. “Everybody’s doing the same thing as far as giving up rebounds. We just gotta do a better job. Physicality, taking that one on one challenge of locking your guy up. And even if our bigs are going to block shots, our guards gotta do a better job of having his back. But it wasn’t just the bigs, their guards flew in and got rebounds as well so we gotta do a better job overall with that.”
. @AndrewGreif: "Do you feel like you’re repeating the same things?"
Ty Lue: "Yeah I do."
"Is it frustrating that it’s not changing?"
"Yeah."
"How do you engineer change?"
"Nobody’s doing any better so it don’t matter if you sub or not… We just gotta do a better job." pic.twitter.com/xnCkXG1tkX
— Tomer Azarly (@TomerAzarly) January 9, 2022
This isn't just a one or two game thing. The Clippers repeatedly lose games where they're unable to close defensive possessions out with rebounds. It also hasn't mattered whether they've been healthy or missed a number of starters and rotation players.
Ty Lue has been forced to play with lineups over the last month as he tries to find a lineup that works well together. Saturday marked the 17th different starting lineup the Clippers have used in 40 games.
“I think our substitutions and having to go to the bench and the way we tried to mix it up. Like I said, that was my fault. The first quarter, we won by eight points and then the 3rd quarter, we tied 28-28, so just having to go to the bench, we had to mix and match with Zu and Nico being on a minutes restriction, I messed that up, so that’s on me. Had a lot to do with it.
“I haven’t done a good job of it, so I’ve gotta keep working at it and like I said, we got off to a good start tonight, so we managed it pretty well. It’s when we gotta go to our bench and mix some combinations, but every night is gonna be a challenge. Just gotta find the right rotations with who’s in, who’s out, and we gotta be better.”
The Clippers don't have a lot of time to move on from this one as they face the Atlanta Hawks on Sunday afternoon back at Crypto dot com Arena. Trae Young and Co. have also been struggling, entering the game with a 17-21 record.
