Leonard entered the box, the Hawks' defensive formation began to shrink into the box, Leonard distributed the ball to Morris in the bottom corner, Morris did not choose to shoot at the first time, but transferred the ball to Norman Powell at the top of the arc, Powell resisted the two of the defense, hit the iron.
Leonard tried to break Betum at the top of the arc to name Trae Young, and Young cleverly chose to delay rather than change defenses, and Leonard was forced to continue the confrontation with the opponent's best outside defender, Hunter, and hit the iron with a backward jumper under the interference of Hunter's long arm.
Leonard tried to block again, this time the Hawks chose to pinch the shot, Leonard took the ball to the free throw line, Batum turned the ball to Powell in the bottom corner, Powell passed the ball to Morris at 45 degrees, Morris tried to pass again and was snatched by Deontay Murray's long arm.
If anyone wonders how the Clippers lost their 11-point lead, these images are the answer. The Hawks are not a formidable opponent, and they've been in trouble lately, losing five of their six games, but against Lu's big lineup with Zubac, Trae Young showed his true qualities, scoring 14 points in the final half to take a tough win from the crypto tennis arena.
The Hawks win hard, but the Clippers lose easily. They trailed by 17 points in the second quarter, set off a comeback frenzy in the third quarter, led by 11 points with half of the fourth quarter to play, and were beaten 17-4 by the Hawks, and the whole process was a bumpy process, but fans who watched the game will only remember their final top shots and hot eye errors. And they've fallen into a six-game losing streak — the Clippers' longest losing streak during the Peppercorns era.
Even more frustrating than losing is what teams can learn from losses. Four days ago, the Clippers were beaten half-court by the Denver Nuggets, the No. 1 in the West, and none of the main players played in the second half. Leonard said in his post-match interview that he was clear about where the team was losing: "We need to play harder, play faster, play smarter, have more urgency, pass the ball more. The reason we fell behind was because we threw too many hero balls. This game shows us what we need to do better. ”
So yesterday we saw a Clippers team where everyone hesitated and scrambled. They certainly didn't "play faster, play smarter" because that might be beyond their ability, but they could "pass the ball more." But in fact, the small-ball lineup cannot play like this, and a small-ball team cannot accept watching a player dribble the ball slowly at the top of the arc without putting any pressure on the opponent's defensive formation, nor can it accept that the ball is drumming and passing flowers between two flankers like a hot potato. A classic 5 Out lineup requires more decisive heads-ups, faster ball transfers and more determined shots to punish opponents.
But now it looks like the Clippers have a hard time doing that. In the final moments of the game, their players on the field were Leonard, Batum, Powell, Morris and Mann, only Batum was considered a qualified shooter, and the quality of the team's passing was shocking, resulting in even a fleeting vacancy that everyone was not resolute enough to shoot.
Their starting point guard for the past three years played just seven minutes as a substitute in this game, shooting 0-of-2 and scoring a single point. Asked if Reggie Jackson had fallen out of the rotation, Lou said he was "just looking for ways to get the team back on track": "Reggie didn't fall out of the rotation, I was just experimenting with different things. Tonight Reggie didn't play, tomorrow it could be someone else. When you lose five games in a row, you always want to try something different. ”
When the manager "looks for ways to get the team back on track" equals "getting you to play less", there must be at least one of him and you having a problem. It's hard to say if there is a problem with Coach Lu, but Reggie definitely does. In the Clippers' previous five-game losing streak, Reggie had not had a positive plus-minus in a single game, shooting just 31.7 percent from the field and losing by 46 points in 123 minutes on the field.
That was the first problem the Clippers faced: exhaustion. Over the past three seasons, because of Leonard and George's massive, repeated, and serious injuries, the Clippers' role players have taken on too much defensive pressure they shouldn't have had and eaten a lot of possession that is beyond their capabilities. Things like this may bring them data and joy at first, but after two years, they only burn out, especially for Reggie, 32, and Morris, 33.
This exhaustion is not only physical, but also spiritual. When Wall had only been with the Clippers for a month, he spotted the problem and said something side-by-side.
"We have to find a way to get the joy out of the game. I used to say to my team-mates in the dressing room, 'Enjoy the time I can play, I haven't played in two years'. I know everyone feels a lot of pressure, but if we don't have fun and enthusiasm in the game, it's hard for us to last a season. ”
Powell brings that kind of energy to the Clippers sometimes, having arrived last season and finally getting the chance to play on a potential championship contender and have the will and chance to compete for a spot with the Sixth Man of the Year. Mann has also played well this season, he is young and strong and is on the rise of his career. But we more often see games like yesterday, where everyone stands motionless outside the three-point line, waiting for the stars to feed them in awkward gestures, and they may not be able to swallow.
The Clippers didn't do well offense last year, ranking only 24th in the league in points per 100 turns, but at least they had the NBA's third-best three-point shooting percentage (37.4 percent). What about this season? They are only 10th in the league in three-point shooting percentage (36.8%), 19th in the league (57.0%) in true field goal percentage, and 28th in the league in offensive efficiency per 100 rounds (110.7), just better than the Rockets and Hornets.
A player without passion and fun can play because that's their job. But for the Clippers, the problem is particularly acute: they only have one center in Zubac's regular rotation (who recently tried Moses Brown, and the results were mediocre). They have a lot of time playing small balls during the game. And as we said, small-ball lineups, the requirements for players' offensive ability, reading ability and subjective aggression are the highest.
As we all know, after D'Antoni returned home, Lu has become the world's favorite coach of the small team. But lately his small lineup has started to get weirder. We can accept Morris as a center forward in the squad at some point, and if it's not long, Batum and Covington can play center for a while. But recently we've started to see Covington falling out of the rotation, George gradually appearing in the center position, and occasionally Lu will show us his Wall (1.91m), Powell (1.91m), Kennard (1.96m) and Garmann (1.96m) four-back formation. Except for the operation of the hammer coach in the same city when he was ill and rushed to the hospital, we really haven't seen a more outrageous formation.
But we can't be too harsh on Lu's guidance, he has to solve two problems: first, the team's problem is not on the defensive end but on the offensive end, the Clippers rank 7th in the league in defensive efficiency and only 28th in offensive efficiency; Secondly, and really important, the Clippers' injury list is updated every day, and every day he doesn't know if two of his team's most important stars will be available tomorrow, and he sometimes understands that it is outrageous to put on that lineup, but glancing at the bench and seeing some players wearing suits and some players not deserving to play, he also knows he has no choice.
The Clippers' character players are also aggrieved, each of them is good quality or even great value in terms of ability, but you can't ask for squeezed vegetables, green onions and ginger to put together a dish for you. Coach Lu is a pretty good cook, and when the Clippers hired him, they wanted him to do a Buddha jumping over the wall, and as a result, he tried to fill everyone's stomach without abalone today and shark fin tomorrow, and as a champion coach who has been coaching this team for two and a half years, we shouldn't blame him, and certainly not for eating too many oyster mushrooms and quail eggs when they were boiled into blood in the past two years.
That's the thing, that's the situation. The Clippers are now small lineups without vitality, and large lineups have hard injuries; Poor attendance of stars and exhaustion of role players; The offense is a mess, and the defense occasionally gets sick; The old problem has not been solved, and the new problem has come.
Given the team's salary situation and roster structure, it is unrealistic for the Clippers to make major changes to the roster today, and replacing Lu will not help. All the most optimistic Clippers fans can do today is reassure themselves that George and Leonard are not fully healthy, and that when they return full of blood, the two stars will surely lead the team together — just as they have said to themselves every day for the past two and a half years.
Is there still such an optimistic person in the world? Anyway, the reporter in front found one after the game, and he said into the microphone: "I don't think six consecutive defeats are a big deal, our players are still optimistic. Now it's time to prove if we can enjoy the game, if we can bounce back as a collective, and I think that's a great challenge for us. ”
This man's name is Kawai Leonard, and after three years of fragmentation, do you still believe him?