As soon as things get tough, the Clippers go soft

After five matches in a row away from Los Angeles, c Clippers back to their room, hoping to end their streak against the Grizzlies. It’s a failure with another defeat after a meeting where the Californians didn’t really exist.

This is their 4th loss in a row, 9th in 10 matches, and even 20th in 26 matches since the beginning of the season. With the Pelicans reeling off two straight wins, finishing in last place in the Western Conference no longer seems impossible for Tyronn Lue’s men…

And what catches the eye is again the lack of character of this team, in which it dominates without any mental or physical response.

“Mentally, when things get tough, you have to be tougher”, observes and hopes Tyronn Lue. “We can play well and if one or two things go wrong, then we tell ourselves to start again, instead of telling ourselves we have to be even stronger, stronger and do things even better. These last five, six or seven matches, we haven’t been able to do that.”

Evidence against Grizzlies. The first half was not necessarily good, including 12 turnovers, but they came back in the third quarter and even went ahead. Except for the Clippers, that’s when the hard part begins: hanging on. Within two minutes, Ja Morant and his teammates made it 9-0 and, despite the timeout, Los Angeles’ hopes were now dead.

“We couldn’t score, especially in the second quarter. Their size hurt us when Joc Landale and Jaren Jackson Jr. were on the floor together, but we also killed each other by not playing the right way.”laments the Clippers coach. “When the pressure makes us step up, we usually don’t do what we’re supposed to do. They took full advantage of that. We also lost the ball at the time and were disorganized.”

Criticisms that could fit into almost every Clippers loss this season…

			Shots			Rebounds
Players	MJ	Min	Shots	3pts	LF	Off	Def	That	Pd	Bp	Int	Ct	Ft	Pts
James Harden	25	35:24	44.0	37.6	88.5	0.6	4.6	5.2	8.1	3.9	1.3	0.4	2.2	26.0
Kawhi Leonard	16	32:38	48.7	37.1	97.4	0.8	4.9	5.6	3.1	1.8	2.0	0.4	1.6	25.0
Ivica Zubac	26	32:51	61.3	0	69.9	3.5	8.0	11.5	2.5	2.0	0.5	1.0	2.7	16.2
John Collins	26	26:53	49.6	28.9	80.7	1.2	3.3	4.5	0.7	1.5	0.8	0.6	2.3	12.0
Derrick Jones Jr.	13	24:55	53.3	34.8	78.6	0.8	1.5	2.4	1.1	0.8	0.8	1.2	2.0	10.5
Bogdan Bogdanovic	12	24:45	39.1	36.2	84.2	0.4	2.9	3.3	3.1	1.2	0.7	0.1	2.5	9.1
Jordan Miller	5	15:12	48.0	46.2	87.5	1.4	1.6	3.0	1.2	1.0	0.4	0.0	0.8	8.8
Bradley Beal	6	20:10	37.5	36.8	75.0	0.3	0.5	0.8	1.7	1.5	0.5	0.0	2.3	8.2
Chris Dunn	26	26:21	48.8	36.6	75.9	0.8	1.8	2.7	2.9	1.3	1.6	0.2	2.3	8.1
Kobe Sanders	18	18:57	42.2	35.4	91.7	0.4	1.4	1.9	1.2	1.4	0.6	0.1	2.3	6.4
Brooke Lopez	19	14:06	39.0	35.3	72.7	0.2	1.5	1.7	0.5	0.7	0.3	0.8	1.7	5.8
Nicholas Batum	25	19:43	37.9	37.8	85.7	0.5	2.2	2.8	0.8	0.7	0.8	0.4	2.0	4.5
Cam Christie	17	11:04	35.5	31.0	70.0	0.5	1.6	2.1	0.6	0.4	0.4	0.1	0.6	4.4
Kobe Brown	17	12:49	37.7	24.4	87.5	0.6	1.6	2.3	1.1	0.6	0.4	0.1	0.6	4.1
Chris Paul	16	14:15	32.1	33.3	50.0	0.4	1.4	1.8	3.3	1.0	0.7	0.0	1.4	2.9
Janic Konan Niederhauser	12	5:00	72.2	0	58.3	0.6	0.8	1.3	0.3	0.3	0.0	0.3	0.3	2.8
Jahmil Telfort	8	4:00 am	0.0	0.0	25.0	0.0	0.4	0.4	0.1	0.1	0.1	0.0	0.6	0.1