The Los Angeles Clippers returned home for a five-game home stand with a lot of promise. Unfortunately, Tyronn Lue’s club was not able to get it started on the right foot.
The Clippers fell to the Portland Trail Blazers on Wednesday night, their second loss of the season and their second straight loss at the all new Intuit Dome to start the campaign. Just like their games were against the Phoenix Suns, Denver Nuggets, and Golden State Warriors, this was another close one.
LA battled against the young and spry Blazers, but ultimately fell, 106-105. Norman Powell led the way with 30 points, five rebounds, and two assists on 11-of-22 shooting from the field. James Harden notched his fourth straight double-double to start the year with 19 points, five rebounds, and 10 assists. Kevin Porter Jr. was the only other Clippers in double-figure scoring with 10 points as Portland made life miserable for the rest of the crew. Ivica Zubac, who recorded three straight 20+ point games and averaged 14 rebounds to start the season, was limited to just six points and 10 rebounds.
On the Blazer side, Anfernee Simons recorded 25 points and six assists on 10-of-24 shooting while Deandre Ayton – 15 points, 12 rebounds — and Deni Avdija — 13 points, 10 rebounds — both recorded double-doubles in the win.
Tyronn Lue warning after 4th straight clutch game
The Clippers had their chances to take the lead and beat the Blazers, including on four different possessions in the final 80 seconds of the game.
Ivica Zubac missed two free throws, Amir Coffey missed a wing three-pointer, Norman Powell was blocked on a transition layup, and James Harden threw the ball away on a bad pass to Zubac with 3.9 seconds remaining.
The final Clippers possessio: a turnover from James Harden trying to feed the ball to Ivica Zubac pic.twitter.com/QNgZCmkAXo
— Tomer Azarly (@TomerAzarly) October 31, 2024
What an utterly insane sequence. pic.twitter.com/g4vJOXMr9C
— Justin Russo (@FlyByKnite) October 31, 2024
The light-hearted joke in postgame press conferences so far this season has been asking Tyronn Lue if the Clippers are going to be in close games all year. So far, that appears to be the case.
“All our games are going to be close – 82 of them,” Lue said when asked about the fourth straight clutch game.
“[We just need to] keep attacking. Keep playing the right way. We’re not going to make shots every night. We understand that. We did a better job taking care of the basketball, but their pressure did slow us down. Made us stagnant, we couldn’t get the ball to the guys we needed to get the ball to. So, we just got to better with that. This is a good test for us. We saw it last game against Golden State when they brought in GP, Wiggins and Kaminga. They did the same thing defensively. So, we got two days to work on it. We didn’t do a good job executing the way we nee to play. We’ll get better.”
Norman Powell explained that close games act as teachable moments, especially for a team that is new and still needs to learn one another.
“Just staying together and execution,” Powell pointed out on teaching points from these close games. “Really, really locking in on what we need to do offensively and defensively, being tied in, um getting guys out of their comfort zone defensively and and gang rebound, finishing possessions. I think they got a lot of extra possessions that kept them in the game and gave them some like feel-good looks after playing some really good defense for 24 seconds.
“Learning how to execute and close games on the defensive end and then offensively just continue to execute continue to take our time, not letting teams push us or getting sped up late games, and just being to more aggressive physical team. Taking a fight to them down to stretches of games. I think on the road, we did a great job of that. Getting the stops at the moment of truth, as JVG says in the course of the game, down the stretch. We just haven’t been able to do that at home, so hopefully we can do that tomorrow.”
James Harden added that he expected the team to be in quite a bit of clutch situations this season, and that he considers them, “good,” for the Clippers to go through.
“For the most part they’re gonna be that way, which is good for us,” James Harden said.
“That way, we’ve got to find a way to win. Obviously, we want to blow teams out, but if that’s not the case, then we find ways to win. Every scenario has been different. Tonight we just didn’t capitalize and we didn’t close. Me missing free throws, that can’t happen.”
The Clippers, who are 2-0 on the road and 0-2 at home, will have four more games on this homestand before they hit the road again. This is as good of a chance as they’ll get to continue establishing their defensive principles and and offensive identity similar to what we saw in the first three games of the season.
Kevin Durant and the Phoenix Suns come to town well-rested on Halloween night, which is the second night of a back-to-back set for the Clippers. So far, Tyronn Lue’s Clippers have only been able to secure wins in back-to-back scenarios so maybe that’s a good thing. Tipoff is scheduled for 7:30PM PST.
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