Piece by: Nick Lombardi
You can't run from it, you can't hide from it, and you certainly can't change it. Each and every Clippers postseason begins and ends in a Punxsutawney hotel room with Sonny & Cher on the radio.
This franchise has been mired in despair under decades of racist and just all around bad owner in Donald Sterling, whose reign of terror died along with the underachieving of the Lob City Clippers in the early 2010s. Admittedly I bought into the Clippers when they sent a ransom of draft picks and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander to the Thunder for Paul George and the privilege of signing Kawhi Leonard. Heading into the COVID wrecked NBA season of 2019-20, the Clippers had two star players and a great collection of role players which made them the favorites to win it all. After cruising past the Mavericks in round one, LAC took a 3-1 lead on the Denver Nuggets, putting them one win away from the team's first WCF trip in their history. Then the collapse. They lost three in a row to the underdog Nuggets making them the laughing stock of NBA fans everywhere.
After their collapse, they fired Doc Rivers, brought in another championship winning head coach in Ty Lue and made some very key additions in Serge Ibaka, Luke Kennard and Nic Batum. They even acquired Rajon Rondo at the deadline. Yet here we are again. The Clippers have lost their first 2 games in the Staples Center in the 2021 playoffs to a Dallas team that is getting better and better behind Euro phenom, Luka Doncic.
Marcus Morris has been wasting offensive possessions for his team by shooting just 5-17 from the floor. However, the main culprit for the Clippers struggles have been on the defensive end. The trio of Euro stars for Dallas plus Tim Hardaway Jr. have been absolutely lights out in this series, especially in game 2 by scoring 100 of Dallas' 127 points. Patrick Beverly is usually an elite perimeter defender and he has done very little to slow Luka down. The Mavericks shot 58.5% from the field and an astounding 53% from 3 in Game 2. Is this kind of offensive efficiency sustainable for Dallas? Will the Clippers finally wake up on February 3rd? It sure isn't looking promising.