The LA Clippers have slipped of late, from the class of the Western Conference to a piddling mediocrity. And it’s starting to wear on many involved parties.
LA has now dropped six of its last nine contests, including its second straight Monday night, a 133-116 defeat against the Indiana Pacers at home. Head coach Tyronn Lue, for one, isn’t going to stand for it anymore.
During his postgame presser, head coach Tyronn Lue called out his squad as being “soft” in this underwhelming recent run, per Ohm Youngmisuk of ESPN. Across their last 22 games, the Clippers have gone a scant 10-12. LA had gone 26-5 from December 1 through February 6.
“When we were 26-5, we had a great identity,” Lue said. “So you can’t pick and choose when you want to lead. 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.”
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“And so right now, do we have an identity? I think, yeah, we’re soft,” Lue suggested.
“Just do the right thing and you could be able to get out of this rut,” Lue added. “We have an identity, but right now our identity has been shaken because we’re not winning.”
The 44-27 Clippers have fallen to the fifth seed in the Western Conference, and are just two games clear of the sixth- and seventh-seeded Sacramento Kings and Dallas Mavericks, both of whom are 42-29.
“We all just got to do our jobs,” Lue said. “Do your job, what we asked you to do.”
Reserve point guard Russell Westbrook made his return following a surgery to treat a fractured left hand. He had a solid night, Westbrook notched 14 points on 5-of-10 shooting from the floor, seven dimes, and four boards, across just 18 minutes. The 6-foot-4 UCLA product offered up an optimistic take on the team’s struggles.
“I think collectively we just got to come together during tough times,” Westbrook opined. “Adversity to me is a real measure of who you are as a man and two, who you are as a team. And I think now is a perfect time for us to be able to pull together, use what we know how to win games, and help each other out to win games.”
“All I know is that collectively we got to figure out ways to compete. The X’s and O’s really don’t matter. You compete, and then everything else will take care of itself.”
Uncommon Knowledge
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.