Only in hindsight did the Clippers’ last visit to New Orleans become a good memory.
Because in the moment, on March 14, nothing felt productive during a 20-point loss that landed with a thud so soon after their uneven play entering the NBA’s All-Star break. The Clippers’ sin that day wasn’t so much their turnovers or three-point shooting, but the fact they’d been routed while offering little resistance. Coach Tyronn Lue was incensed afterward.
Five weeks later, during his return Monday to Smoothie King Center, Lue still seemed upset by it.
“I just didn’t think we had the right mindset coming into the game,” he said. “I think that was a wakeup call for us.”
The March loss forced Lue to insert Ivica Zubac as the starting center, because of a back injury suffered by Serge Ibaka, and he made a second lineup change immediately after by replacing Nicolas Batum with Marcus Morris, a switch made in hopes of jump-starting Morris’ scoring. Those switches, and Lue’s challenge to play better defense, have been central to the Clippers’ league-leading 18-5 record since that loss. The team that took the court Monday — which included DeMarcus Cousins and Rajon Rondo, veterans who weren’t added for several weeks — looked, in ways obvious and not, like a wholly different group.
Monday’s matchup, though, would not be a game of spot-the-difference. The more things have changed during the Clippers’ late-season surge, the more they stayed the same against the Pelicans, at least, who routed the Clippers 120-103 on a night when defense was again treated as optional and their shooting poor, even on the kind of wide-open looks that have brought them within reach of the Western Conference’s second-best record over the last five weeks.
The loss denied the Clippers’ chance to clinch a spot in the postseason for the ninth time in 10 seasons.
Terance Mann scored a team-high 17 points and Cousins added 16 points and 11 rebounds off the bench, but the Clippers made 31.1% of their three-pointers while allowing New Orleans 51% shooting from deep and 53% overall.
Paul George scored nine points, making three of 11 shots.
After the Pelicans went on a 27-4 run in the first quarter to lead 29-13, one of the few rays of Clippers optimism was the production of Cousins, who scored eight points within his first four minutes off the bench. It didn’t matter that the former All-Star big man is still learning the team’s playbook on the fly, three weeks after he signed his first 10-day contract; he simply used mano-a-mano force and, once, a balletic baseline spin, to cut his paths to the basket.
Only hours earlier, Cousins signed a contract for the rest of the season.
“As far as him stepping in and playing and not really knowing any plays and what we’re trying to do defensively, he’s been a huge help for us,” Lue said. “Be able to post the basketball with that second unit, he’s a great passer out of the post. Great hands around the basket, getting to the free-throw line. Offensive rebounds, taking charges.
“And so, for a guy to come into a situation where he doesn’t really know anything about what we’re trying to do and still be able to produce, he’s been very big for us.”
With Luke Kennard resting, and Kawhi Leonard missing his fourth consecutive game because of a sore right foot — he has played in one of the team’s last nine games — there was not enough shooting to turn the Clippers’ moments of fight into a full-fledged comeback.
Down 17 within 11 minutes, the Clippers pulled within six with 2:52 to play in the first half, only for the Pelicans to close on a 7-0 run to lead by 14 at the break.
Trailing by nine with eight minutes to play the third quarter was the kind of deficit the NBA’s best three-point shooting team can close in only three possessions. Instead, within three minutes, the Clippers were down 17 again.
The Clippers (43-20) didn’t play George during the final 14 minutes, opting for rest ahead of Wednesday’s showdown in Phoenix against the second-seeded Suns.
