LOS ANGELES — As far as Kawhi Leonard can tell, the Clippers are good enough to be one of the top teams in the Western Conference.
“We’re right there,” Leonard said.
And yet, they aren’t.
Monday’s 121-100 loss to the Minnesota Timberwolves exposed flaws in their game, lapses in their defense and an inability to defend the paint.
“I think there’s going to be games like this moving forward as well,” Leonard said. “We have to look at what we’re doing, the things we’re not doing well and try to get better at it before it starts getting real.”
With two months to go before the playoffs begin, this game was to serve as a test, a barometer of how well the Clippers measured up against one of the league’s top teams.
Yet, after getting a close look at the competition, the Clippers finished the trial run pretty much in the same place they started, a step below the first-place Timberwolves.
Make that a big step, but not an impossible leap with a bit of work.
“We’ve been winning games as everybody’s seen. And there’s ways for us to get better and that’s scary,” Leonard said. “We started jelling a little late and now it’s time to kind of turn it around.”
The Clippers (35-17), who started the night a half-game behind Minnesota (37-16), finished the evening tied for third place with the defending NBA champion Denver Nuggets (36-18), who lost to the Milwaukee Bucks in an earlier game Monday. Second-place Oklahoma City (36-17) was idle.
“It’s just good to have (a game like this) and see, going into April and May, when you play these elite teams and seeing how they want to attack you and how they want to try to exploit you,” Lue said. “It’s good for us to see and learn from it.”
If the Clippers – who are 27-7 since the start of December – hope to take over the top spot in what is expected to be an ever-changing conference race, they need to learn how to combat the Timberwolves’ inside game and stop the triple threat of Karl-Anthony Towns, Rudy Gobert and Anthony Edwards.
After rallying twice from 10-point deficits in the first half, the Clippers couldn’t match that intensity in the second half. They fell behind by as many as 19 points in the third quarter as Towns went to work as part of a 27-8 run to close the period.
He scored 10 of his game-high 24 points in the third quarter to help the Timberwolves open an 89-72 lead and then sat out for much of the final quarter.
Minnesota shot 12 for 19 from the field and made all 13 of its free throws in the third, while the Clippers were 7 for 20 from the field and committed five turnovers that resulted in six Minnesota points.
Towns, who shot 8 for 12 from the field for the night, also had four rebounds and three assists. Edwards finished with 24 points despite making just 1 of his 11 his 3-point attempts. He posted seven rebounds and eight assists and made all six of his free throws.
Gobert added 17 points and 10 rebounds.
“It is a problem if you’re not moving the ball, if you’re not attacking the right way, they put you in a tough situation offensively and so we didn’t handle it well tonight,” Lue said about stopping the Timberwolves’ three stars.
The Clippers were led by Paul George, who finished with 18 points after a slow start. His two 3-pointers pushed him ahead of Eric Piatkowski for first place on the Clippers’ all-time 3-point field goal list – passing Piatkowski with a 24-footer in the third quarter. He now has 740 career 3-pointers.
Leonard also had 18 points on 8-of-17 shooting and James Harden finished with 17 points and six assists, while Russell Westbrook added 11 points and three assists. Center Ivica Zubac had 10 rebounds to go with his six points.
The Clippers struggled to find the basket early and fell behind by as many as 10 points twice before Harden and George pulled them out of their funk with a late charge in the final minutes of the first half to take a 53-49 lead in the halftime.
Trailing 47-43, Harden made two free throws followed by a layup by Mann. George, who had just two points in the opening quarter, made a 3-pointer with 25 seconds remaining in the second to give the Clippers their first lead at 50-49.
Harden then got the ball and lofted a 3 at the buzzer for a four-point lead, 53-49.
The Clippers had rallied from a 43-33 deficit to tie the score and had an opportunity to take the lead, but Harden missed a 3-point attempt that would have given the Clippers their first lead. Moments later, Harden redeemed himself with a 14-footer that tied the score at 43-all with 2:53 left in the first half. His shot capped a 10-point run, setting up the Clippers’ late surge heading into halftime.
“At the end of the day, we just got to be more consistent getting to the second and third actions,” Lue said. “Tonight was just a tough game for us.”
"We have to be more consistent"
Coach Ty Lue give his thoughts on tonight's game 🔊@LAClippers | #ClipperNation | #ClippersLive pic.twitter.com/PZT1p2Of8A
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