INGLEWOOD — The Clippers’ landscape changed over the past three days, with new faces and empty lockers. But the biggest difference came in the team’s play and attitude.
They played as if they cared. At least for the first 18 minutes of Thursday’s game against the Indiana Pacers before they seemed to lose focus and purpose in a 119-112 loss at the Intuit Dome.
Led by forward Pascal Siakam, the Pacers handed the Clippers (28-23) their third consecutive loss.
Siakam had a game-high 33 points on13-of-16 shooting, including five 3-pointers and had 11 rebounds. Bennedict Mathurin added 25 points, six rebounds and four assists.
Clippers coach Tyronn Lue had been upset with his team’s listless play against the Lakers on Tuesday night and addressed the players before facing the Pacers.
“They owned it and (acknowledged) we have to be better all around the board,” Lue said. “It can’t be from a lack of playing hard and competing.”
The message seemed to get lost against Indiana, which picked up the pace late in the first half and kept pushing until they came away with a hard-fought victory, despite balanced scoring by the Clippers.
James Harden and Norman Powell each had 22 points and Kawhi Leonard finished with 19 points in 34 minutes – his longest stint this season.
Ivica Zubac had 18 points and 15 rebounds, Amir Coffey had 14 points and Derrick Jones Jr. added 12 points.
“We’ve got to lock in,” Lue said. “Like I said, we are not going to make shots every night. You might turn the basketball over, but defensively you got to be able to take the one-on-one challenge, take pride in guarding and we just haven’t done it in the last three days, I mean three games. So, we got to be better.”
The Clippers clamped down on the Pacers in the third quarter and kept up the pressure in the fourth, never letting Indiana gain more than a two-point advantage after Amir Coffey hit two free throws with 11:01 left to play for a 90-88 lead.
The teams largely traded baskets for much of the quarter.
Jones gave the Clippers a 105-100 lead with 3:31 left, but the Pacers closed to within two when Siakam’s fifth 3-pointer started a 19-7 closing run. A 3-pointer and layup by Tyrese Haliburton gave the Pacers a 108-105 lead with less than two minutes to play, and they made nine of 10 free throws down the stretch.
“We understand that we’re a defensive-minded team first,” Lue said. “Everything else takes care of itself and we haven’t done it the last three games. And so, they understood that.
“We just got to be better. And it doesn’t mean you’re going to win every game, but the way you lose and how you lose is something totally different.”
After their listless performance on Tuesday, the Clippers came out firing, making seven of their first 10 shots. They continued to find openings around the basket against the Pacers’ improved defense that has helped them turn around their season.
Indiana started the season 10-15 but has won 12 of its last 15 games and 18 of the past 24.
“We’ve gotten better defensively and that’s going to continue to be our main focus,” Pacers coach Rick Carlisle said.
The Clippers, however, fell into familiar bad habits late in the first half with careless plays and turning the ball over. The Pacers were quick to take advantage of 11 first-half miscues by the Clippers to turn a 22-point deficit into a 64-61 halftime lead.
Trailing 39-17, Indiana went on a 15-0 run to trim the Clippers’ lead to 44-37. Zubac stopped the flow with a turnaround hook shot at the 7:10 mark. After Thomas Bryant’s dunk, Powell hit back-to-back baskets to push the lead back to double figures at 51-41.
But the Pacers, playing without center Myles Turner, didn’t fold. They continued to push the Clippers and eventually took a 62-58 lead on seven consecutive points by Siakam. A 3-point play by Mathurin closed out a 42-point second quarter by Indiana.
Turner had gone to the locker room to be evaluated for a concussion in the first quarter after he was inadvertently hit in the face by Mathurin while going for a rebound. Turner stayed down on the court for several seconds, got up and then staggered while making his way to the bench.
The Clippers might have blamed the lapse on being short-handed. Earlier in the day, they reportedly sent Terance Mann and Bones Hyland to the Atlanta Hawks for Bogdan Bogdanovic and three second-round picks. Then three hours before Thursday’s deadline passed, the Clippers reportedly sent Kevin Porter Jr. to the Milwaukee Bucks for Marjon Beauchamp, leaving the team somewhat short-handed for the game against the Pacers.
The Pacers had 31 assists on 43 baskets and seven turnovers to the Clippers’ 19.
More to come on this story.