There’s no way around it, last night was the worst loss of the Clippers’ season.
The Good:
It’s pretty hard to find anything good about this game. The Clippers were outperformed in nearly every single category against the Heat. The only positive is that Tobias Harris found his shooting stroke after an off-night against the Grizzlies. Harris put up 20 points on 8/19 (42%) shooting from the field. It should be noted though that the Clippers had a ton of wide-open and good looks against the Heat, the ball simply just didn’t go in. There weren’t many moments where the Clippers took bad shots.
🗣 GET OUT THE WAY.@tobias31 comin' through. pic.twitter.com/okEcfls7wT
— LA Clippers (@LAClippers) December 9, 2018
The Bad:
The lack of effort on the defensive end by LA was truly abysmal. It seemed like the team gave up mentally after so many wide open looks couldn’t go in. They allowed a Heat team missing 3 of their best players to score 121 points, with 52 points in the paint. LA really needs to go back to the drawing board when it comes to dealing with the zone, because it completely took them off their rhythm.
The Ugly:
There’s nothing uglier losing to a team missing multiple starters, at home, that’s on a back-to-back. That statement would be true, if the Clippers didn’t have the fourth quarter that they did. With 3:49 left in the game, the Clippers only scored two points in the fourth quarter. They ended up being outscored in the fourth 30-8. It was one of the ugliest quarters in Clippers basketball history.
Doc Rivers’ ejection was also absolutely puzzling. He was ejected by a rookie official Ray Acosta in a call that’s yet to be explained. Doc Rivers stated postgame that he can’t explain why he got ejected. Lou Williams stated it was simply that the “young fella just lost his composure.”
#Clippers’ Lou Williams on what he saw during Doc Rivers’ ejection in the fourth quarter vs. #Heat – “Young fella lost his composure.” pic.twitter.com/dmyV7UVJf7
— Tomer Azarly (@TomerAzarly) December 9, 2018
The Final Clip: Last night was the first game of the Clippers season where they just looked ugly. They weren’t “in the game”, nor did they fight in the fourth quarter. Luckily, they face the worst team in the league on Monday in a game that could set them back on track.
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