Twelve days, seven cities, six victories.
The Clippers’ recent stretch of games that took them from Toronto to Atlanta tested not only the team’s resolve to maintain its status among the NBA’s best teams, but also its defense.
Throughout the Grammy-induced trip, the Clippers found themselves trailing early or battling to hold onto leads late in games and using their explosive offensive power to propel them to victories.
So glaring were their defensive struggles that after beating the Detroit Pistons in a game in which they trailed early, All-Star Kawhi Leonard uncharacteristically spoke out and suggested the Clippers were winning games largely on their talent and that they needed to “be focused on execution.”
Leonard wasn’t wrong. After beating the Atlanta Hawks on Monday in a 149-144 shootout to go 6-1 on the trip, Coach Tyronn Lue pointed to the team’s sporadic defensive lapses. The Clippers’ lone setback was a 10-point loss on Jan. 29 to another of the league’s hottest teams, the Cleveland Cavaliers.
“This was a hell of a trip for us, you know. We go 6-1 against the caliber of teams we played on this trip. Coming into I, we knew it was going to be a tough battle,” Lue said after the Atlanta game.
“But I give these guys credit. We stuck with it, and we got down in some games early, continued to keep fighting,” Lue added. “And like I said, just a total team effort. Everyone contributed on all offensive end, but defensively, we got to get back home, and really start locking up defensively and getting better because we are better than that.”
But as Lue added, the season moves forward and with one day of rest, the Clippers (34-15), who have won 26 of their 31 games since Dec. 1, come home to face the New Orleans Pelicans (29-21) on Wednesday in the first of three straight home games.
“Yeah, that’s not fair, but it is what it is,” Lue said.
Unlike their defense, the Clippers have shown no slippage offensively. Leonard…
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