Clippers, striving for playoff spot, lose close | College News

The aim for the Clippers is to remain among the many high six groups within the aggressive Western Conference and keep away from the NBA’s play-in event.

How the Clippers deal with the tough highway forward will decide their final result.

They have 23 video games remaining to make the playoffs a actuality. They had been unable to take a step ahead Friday night time, their turnovers and poor three-point taking pictures dooming them in a 106-102 loss to the Lakers at Crypto.com Arena.

Yet by the tip of the night time, the Clippers nonetheless held the sixth spot within the West, despite the fact that they’d an similar 32-27 file because the surging Golden State Warriors.

And the schedule doesn’t get any simpler for the Clippers. They face the surging Lakers again on Sunday at Crypto.com Arena. The Clippers then journey to Phoenix for a recreation Tuesday earlier than coming home for video games towards Detroit, New York and Sacramento.

All these pressure-packed video games are towards groups combating for seeding within the standings.

“With the schedule, it’s more challenging. But we’re up for the challenge,” Clippers coach Tyronn Lue mentioned. “So, it’s the tough part of our schedule. We play a lot of good teams, a lot of games in this last month and a half. We’re slowly starting to get healthy and the guys we acquired, we just got to continue to get them up to speed. But I like where we’re at and it’s in our hands. So, we’re in a good spot, we’re in a good place and now we just got to start building off of it.”

Those new guys are backup guards Ben Simmons and Bogdan Bogdanovic. But it’s stars corresponding to Kawhi Leonard, James Harden, Norman Powell and Ivica Zubac who the Clippers will keep leaning on.

Zubac was a pressure towards the Lakers, producing a double-double with 27 factors on 13-for-15 taking pictures and 16 rebounds.

Leonard was stable with 21 factors. But James Harden was not in scoring 18. He was 5 for 22 from the sphere, had six turnovers and didn’t speak to the media after the sport.

The Clippers had 18 turnovers, 5 within the fourth quarter. They shot simply two for 9 from past the three-point line within the fourth, together with a missed three by Leonard with 21.5 seconds left and the Clippers down by 4 and a missed three by Bogdanovic with 10.2 seconds left and nonetheless down by 4.

“Missed shots. Turnovers, obviously,” Leonard mentioned. “And the Lakers played good basketball tonight.”

The Clippers have misplaced 4 of 5 video games because the All-Star break. Powell has missed all 5 as a result of of a left knee pressure.

They are nonetheless within the thick of issues within the West. As such, the Clippers totally perceive the significance of being a top-six crew versus a play-in crew on the seven-through-10 positions.

‘It’s very important for us to have the ability to solidify, to be within the playoffs as a substitute of having to play within the play-in recreation,” Lue mentioned. “But it is what it is. Whatever challenges we have to take, we’re going to be up for that challenge. So, whether it’s keeping the sixth seed, which we want to do, whether it’s seventh or eighth, whatever, we got to continue to keep fighting to get to the playoffs and that’s our mindset.”

Powell close to return

Lue mentioned Powell, his main scorer, “is getting close” to returning. Powell (24.2 factors) is taking pictures 49.6% from the sphere and 42.8% from three-point vary.

“We’ve been missing that dearly,” Lue mentioned. “But like I said, he’s getting close and we need him back as soon as possible.”