Twice in six days, the Clippers gave up significant double-digit leads late in a game en route to losses, glaring indicators of perhaps defensive lapses, too many turnovers or a lack of perimeter shooting.
They led the Lakers by 21 points before succumbing, 116-112, and the short-handed Milwaukee Bucks by 15 before handing the Eastern Conference powerhouse a 113-106 victory on the second night of a back-to-back.
“They’re all bad losses, however you look at it. But coming off it back-to-back, whether Giannis (Antetokounmpo) played or not, we knew it was going to be a tough game,” Coach Tyronn Lue said after Monday’s game in Milwaukee.
Lue said the team ran their normal plays and attacked in the second half against the Bucks’ zone, but “just didn’t get to the basket. We got open looks, got good shots, (but) we just didn’t make the open 3’s that we normally could make.”
Yet, as bad as it looks, the Clippers are not alone in their late-game follies. Lately, several teams have encountered similar fates. The Boston Celtics coughed up a 22-point lead to the Cleveland Cavaliers; the Lakers gave away a 19-point first-quarter lead to the Sacramento Kings and the Minnesota Timberwolves let a 17-point lead slip away before pulling out a close victory Thursday against the Indiana Pacers.
All to say that the Clippers are not concerned about trending even though they were staring at a 20-point deficit to the Houston Rockets in the first half of Wednesday’s contest before coming away with a 122-116 victory to close out a three-game trip.
“They (Rockets) were playing faster, playing more aggressively than us,” James Harden said. “Getting more second-chance points – just basically everything as a coach you don’t want to give up, we’re giving up. We talked about it (in the) second half and we were a lot better.”
The Clippers need to refocus their energies as they head into their second five-games-in-seven-days stretch this season, starting…
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