INGLEWOOD — The Clippers locker room had all but cleared out, the players having scurried after losing their fourth consecutive game at their new home. James Harden was nowhere to be seen. Neither was Derrick Jones Jr.
Ivica Zubac dressed quickly and headed out an alternate door, while Kai Jones dipped out after buttoning his jacket.
That left Norman Powell and Terance Mann to answer how the Clippers again squandered opportunities that resulted in an uneven 105-92 loss to the unbeaten Oklahoma City Thunder on Saturday at the Intuit Dome.
Asked what the mood was like in the locker room, Powell threw back the question.
“What does it feel like when you’re standing in here? What does it feel like? Yeah, it don’t feel good. It’s nasty right now. But we just got to figure it out.”
The Clippers (2-4) have been pressed to take a breath much less decipher what continues to falter, especially in the second half.
In their first six games, played over a span of 11 days, the Clippers have tended to play well in the first half, sometimes building double-digit leads, before the game breaks down in the final 24 minutes.
“I mean, you know, we’re playing good for 28, 32 minutes, but we just gotta stay with it,” Powell said.
“We’re not that good right now … we’re not very good,” Coach Tyronn Lue said.
And he said that before the game.
The Clippers showed a surprising measure of toughness in battling the unbeaten Thunder but in the end, they couldn’t match the energy of the Thunder’s young roster or Shai Gilgeous-Alexander’s hot shooting.
Gilgeous-Alexander, who is averaging 26.5 points, scored 25 points despite not playing seven minutes of the fourth quarter. He came back in at the 5:50 mark and did not score. He didn’t have to.
The Thunder had four other players shouldering the load, all finishing in double figures, led by Luguentz Dort’s 16 points. Chet Holmgren had a double-double with 10 points and 14 rebounds.
The game ended like so many of the Clippers’ first four games – lost leads, double-digit turnovers and uncomfortable close finishes.
This letdown could be attributed to fatigue. The Clippers were playing their third game in four nights, but Lue wasn’t buying it.
“We got to sustain it for 48 minutes,” he said. “Just being mentally tough, being strong. We’re not the only team playing this kind of schedule.”
The Clippers, behind Powell’s continued solid shooting, kept the pressure on the Thunder for three quarters but couldn’t stop OKC in the fourth. The Thunder outscored the Clippers, 24-14, in the final quarter.
Powell led the Clippers with 24 points, his fifth game scoring 20 or more points. James Harden had a quiet 12 points, 13 rebounds and seven assists and Terance Mann and Kris Dunn each contributed 11 points.
Zubac finished with 12 rebounds but shot just 4 of 10 from the field and 1 of 5 from the free throw line for nine points.
“(I told the team) to stay with it,” Lue said. “We have played in battles against some tough teams and the biggest message tonight is ‘stay the course.’
“We talked about being better offensively and defensively being better in the second half and I thought defensively we were really good in the second half. You know, we competed and they scored some baskets, which they can do.
“But offensively we just didn’t take our shots when we were open. We turned down some shots. … We didn’t complete those and then we had 22 turnovers against a team that likes to get out in transition.”
Lue said that while the Clippers were “terrible” offensively in the second half, he thought they played solid defense throughout the game.
“It’s something to hang our hat on, but we have to keep getting better offensively.”
The Clippers started off by building a 13-point lead in the first half and then fumbled it away only to regroup and hold a four-point lead at halftime. Four points against the Thunder, who shot 41.5% in the first half, was tenuous at best.
The second half has been the Clippers’ Achilles this season, that time of the game when they seemingly forget how to throw a pass or hold onto the ball. In their last game, the Clippers turned the ball over eight times in the second half and six times in the final quarter to lose a 21-point lead to the Phoenix Suns.
They couldn’t afford to make mistakes against the Thunder, who were outright swarming their opponents. Through five previous games, Oklahoma City forced 20.6 turnovers and left Atlanta Hawks All-Star guard Trey Young with 10 by the game’s end.
“We can’t be throwing cross-court skip passes,” Lue said. “We can’t be trying to drive into a crowd, trying to draw fouls. If it’s not there, if the guy is not open, we gotta make a simple play.”
Easier said than executed.
The Clippers started what they had hoped to be another big lead, putting up 19 3-pointers in the first quarter, tying a franchise record. It resulted in six made 3’s and a nine-point lead.
Kris Dunn’s second 3-pointer gave the Clippers their biggest lead of the half, 35-22, the sixth time this season that they have built a double-digit lead.
But like their past two games, they couldn’t hold on to it, watching it dwindle as the Thunder picked up their energy and took a 48-47 lead with 3:11 left before halftime. OKC stretched it to 50-47 on a layup by Williams.
The Clippers didn’t flinch and by halftime, they had regained the momentum and a slim 57-53 lead.
