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Clippers drop to 1-5 with a fifth straight loss, to a Warriors team without Curry and Green, and Tyronn Lue calls one-on-one defense ‘our foundation’
The Clippers led by eight after one quarter, then gave up 22 threes and lost 124-112 at Golden State, which rested Stephen Curry and Draymond Green. Tyronn Lue on straight-line drives, Kris Dunn on his career-high seven steals, Darius Garland’s turnovers, and the Raptors on Monday.
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The Los Angeles Clippers led Golden State by eight after the first quarter in San Francisco on Sunday night, against a Warriors team resting Stephen Curry and Draymond Green on the front end of a back-to-back. Then Golden State won the second quarter 34-20, made 22 of 49 threes and beat them 124-112. It was the Clippers’ fifth straight loss, and it left them 1-5, with their only win coming against Sacramento on opening night.
Three of the five losses have come against teams missing their best player: the Lakers without Luka Dončić on Wednesday, Minnesota without Anthony Edwards on Friday and now the Warriors. The Clippers have been without injured Bradley Beal, Brandon Ingram, Max Strus, Jordan Miller and Yanic Konan Niederhauser, and they lost Derrick Jones Jr. to a right knee injury on Sunday after he had played 28 minutes.
Tyronn Lue: ‘It’s our foundation’
Tyronn Lue did not blame the shooting. He blamed what came before it. “I think, like defensively, I think too many straight-line drives, getting blown by,” the Clippers coach said. “There’s no defense to recover when you get blown by. They got in the paint. We got to overhelp. Spread it out for threes. They took, you know, 49 threes.”
His fix was simple, and he said it was the same one the team talks about every day: guard your own man, “stay square in front of the basketball like we preach every day, and then make them play through you.” He added that “at the start, there were just too many breakdowns” in their coverages, “and then getting beat off the dribble, you know, one-on-one. It’s our foundation.”
The numbers back him up. Rookie Yaxel Lendeborg scored a career-high 37 on 13-of-19 shooting, De’Anthony Melton made 6 of 8 threes for 21 points, and the Clippers did not block a shot all night. Golden State led by as many as 22. More on Lendeborg’s night is in our story from Monday morning.
Kris Dunn’s seven steals
The one Clipper who did what Lue asked was Kris Dunn. Lue moved him onto the ball-handler in the second half to “bother his handle,” and Dunn finished with a career-high seven steals, plus 12 points on 5-of-8 shooting. Lue said Dunn “might have like three steals in a row” during one stretch.
Dunn, who said he made his name in the league as a defender, described the problem much the way his coach did. “I think just communicating, everybody being on the same page, and then I think our urgency from the start to finish,” he said. “I think there’s moments where we do well defensively, but then we have lapses. And I think the really good teams, they maintain it throughout the whole game.”
He also said everybody on a roster has to find a role. “Everybody can’t be a superstar, right? There’s only a few guys in the league that could do that,” Dunn said. “Everybody got to try to figure out what they do really well and try to apply it to the game, and just try to find a way to help the team.”
Garland’s turnovers, and a late run by the reserves
Darius Garland opened the season with 30 points against the Kings. In the five losses since, he has shot 34 of 82, including 12 of 36 from three, and he has 31 turnovers in six games, more than five a game. On Sunday he had 15 points on 4-of-12 shooting with seven assists and three turnovers. Rui Hachimura led the Clippers with 24 on 10-of-16 shooting, and Kobe Sanders scored 16 off the bench. Rookie Keaton Wagler played 19 minutes, his fewest this season, and went 2 of 8.
There were two small positives. The Clippers had 14 turnovers, their fewest this season after 24 or more in three of their first five games. And with the game out of reach, their reserves scored 13 straight points in two minutes to cut a 118-97 deficit to 118-110 with 2:16 left. Nick Martinelli scored 10 points in six minutes, all of them in the fourth quarter, before Melton ended it with two more threes.
What’s next
There is no time to dwell. The Clippers host the Toronto Raptors at Intuit Dome on Monday, November 2, at 10 p.m. ET (5 a.m. Tuesday, Cairo time), on the second night of a back-to-back for both teams. Toronto is 3-3 after losing 131-125 to the Lakers on Sunday, and it played that game without Kawhi Leonard and with Jakob Poeltl scratched because of a sore left shoulder. The Miami Heat visit on Wednesday at 10:30 p.m. ET (5:30 a.m. Thursday, Cairo time).
Dunn said the group still believes it can turn things around. “It’s a long season. I think we played six games, if I’m correct. We got so many games left,” he said. “As you know from last year, we turned it around, and we were in a dark, dark spot last year. This group already has positive energy. We just got to figure out what works for us, get some chemistry going.”
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