LOS ANGELES – Ty Lue tries to shake up his starting lineup by making a replacement reggie jackson at point guard, but clippers saw atlanta hawks, trae young handled in the fourth quarter and handed Los Angeles its sixth straight loss.
Young scored 14 of his 30 points in the final 6:27 to erase the Clippers’ 11-point lead and help Atlanta escape Crytpo.com Arena. 112-108 win Sunday night
The Clippers (21-21), a team that came into the season with championship hopes, is now mired in the longest losing streak kawhi leonard,Paul George Era.
Leonard said that this is a good test to see if the Clippers can survive.
“I think it’s still good,” Leonard said when asked about the team’s chemistry facing the most adversity of the season. “The boys are still being positive.
“This is where [the Clippers] See if you really enjoy the game and if we’re a team, see if we can dig this hole. it’s funny. It’s a good challenge for us.”
The Clippers have been unable to stay healthy and have been without George (right hamstring) for the second straight game. luke kennard Was out with calf issue as well.
But the Clippers have also played down the stretch with a lack of defense, energy, urgency and pace during this slump. Lew decided to put terence mann in the starting lineup for Jackson, who had been the starting point guard for the past two-plus seasons. Jackson played only eight minutes, all in the first half, and went scoreless.
Mann finished with 14 points, eight rebounds, four assists and two steals in 35 minutes.
“I thought we were really good defensively,” Lue said. “Still learning to play with TMN at the point guard position, but, when PG comes back, he can help with that as well. I thought overall it was great.”
Asked if Jackson is the odd man out in the rotation right now, Lue said he’s looking for ways to get the Clippers back on track.
“No, I think it was Reggie tonight,” said Lew. “Then tomorrow, it could be someone else. Just experimenting with different things. When you lose five games in a row, you want to try some different things.”
The Clippers fell behind by 17 late in the second quarter but came back on a 40–17 run. They led 102–91 after Leonard (29 points) hit a 3 with 6:45 remaining. But Young took possession and hit two 10-foot driving floaters with 47.7 seconds remaining to help the Hawks win.
Now the Clippers will try to stop their slide luka doncic And this dallas mavericks Tuesday at home. After that, the Clippers faced the two-time MVP Nikola Jokic And this nuggets at home after losing 31 in Denver last Thursday.
“We have to stick together,” said the veteran forward. nick batum, “I mean, it’s not pretty, it’s not easy right now. But we can’t separate ourselves, so we have to be together… It’s not easy right now. It’s not pretty, that’s for sure.” . But we can’t just relax.”
Batum also said that the players would stick with Jackson after he did not play the fan favorite in the second half.
“It’s not easy for some players to have some games like this,” Batum said. “Keep talking to Reggie. I mean how many times has Reggie saved us [before], That’s why people love him. That’s why they chant his name because he’s a big player… yeah it’s tough because we want Reggie on the court, we want to see Reggie perform, but tonight the coach made some choices .
“So we’ll have to stick with my brother … He already knows what he can bring to this team. So we’ll need Reggie at some point.”