All is not well with the Los Angeles Clippers.
They lost 107-97 to Houston on Saturday to fall to 16-12 on the season, and a team that nearly played in the Western Conference Finals last season is now looking for answers as to why they’re treading water now.
“We have to be better than this,” Blake Griffin said, via Dan Woike of the Orange County Register. “We are better than this and we’re not showing it.
“We haven’t won any big games. We haven’t won the games you go into it thinking, ‘OK, this is one we have to get.’ We’ve lost all those games.”
Griffin said that the excuse-making has to stop, and it’s not valid to say that the team is still integrating new pieces. His comments were also in line with what he recently said about L.A.’s rivalry with the Golden State Warriors.
“That was kind of the narrative early on, but after however many games, you can’t keep saying that over and over,” Griffin said. “At a certain point, it can’t be about new guys. It’s just got to be about buying in. Every team has some new guys. Most teams have some new guys. We have to figure something out.”
Chris Paul was even more harsh in his assessment of the Clippers.
“We’re not a team that anybody needs to be worried about. I’ll tell you that. Not right now,” Paul said. “We still have a lot of work to do. Being how our team was last year, we’re behind as far as figuring out that trust.”
The Clippers are just 4-9 against teams .500 or better, and they do not look like they’re on the same page at all. It’s not too late for these supposed title contenders to break out of their slump, but Doc Rivers has a big job ahead of him this year.
