LOS ANGELES – What’s up with the Clippers?
I get that a lot. A lot.
I covered them for four eventful years, so I understand why people ask: Weren’t the Clippers supposed to be good this season? Weren’t they supposed to be a championship contender?
Yep. Uh-huh.
So why are they 34-33? And what was up with the five-game free fall that sent them tumbling down the Western Conference standings, from fourth to eighth in a week, from fine to fringe play-in participant?
Heck if I know!
This team, I tell you. The ol’ riddle wrapped in an enigma. Wrapped in bacon. Decorated with a gaudy vinyl vehicle wrap. Preserved with Saran wrap. Beneath a layer of holiday gift wrap. With a bow in the shape of a question mark.
The Clippers make no sense.
Sunday night’s 135-129 victory over the beleaguered Memphis Grizzlies was the Clippers’ experience reduced to its confounding essence.
Going into it, fans expected something had to change. A team descending head-on into the abyss would be searching desperately for a ripcord, right? Right?
Somewhat defiantly, Coach Tyronn Lue trotted out another starting lineup with struggling forward Marcus Morris Sr. included. And that group seemed to shrug at Paul George’s sudden burst of aggression, his 19 first-half points that came mainly on committed drives to the basket.
Despite George’s output – he, at least, felt some “desperation” early in Sunday’s game, he said – and despite facing a severely short-handed Grizzlies team whose absences included electric-but-suspended All-Star Ja Morant, the Clippers led by only six at halftime.
And then things got bleak.
Through little effort of their own, the Clippers wound up on the wrong end of one of the most outrageous quarters in NBA history, a 51-point third-quarter onslaught. Fifty-one! Something that’d happened only 27 times in NBA history.
It was embarrassing. But when the quarter closed, only the Clippers’ fourth-year guard Terance Mann showed much emotion, kicking…
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