Clippers lose another game to Grizzlies as struggles continue

INGLEWOOD — The Clippers appeared to have reached a good place at least mentally, Coach Tyronn Lue said, pointing to their recent play.

“We’ve been better,” Lue said of his team’s close games. “Defensively, we’ve been better and offensively, it’s understanding how we want to play and the need to play has been better.”

That was Lue’s thought before the Clippers lost to the Memphis Grizzlies on Monday night in their first home game since Nov. 29. Afterward, his view took on a far less rosy outlook.

“I think mentally, I think when it gets hard, you got to get tougher. We can be playing good basketball and a couple of things go wrong and they’re like, ‘here we go again’ instead of having a mindset that we got to get tougher, we got to get stronger and then do things even better,” Lue said.

“And these last five, six, seven games, we haven’t been able to do that.”

All of which has left the Clippers stuck in a rut and going nowhere fast.

The Clippers have not won at the Intuit Dome since Halloween, have won just three of their past 21 games overall and have only the New Orleans Pelicans (5-22) to thank for keeping them out of the Western Conference basement.

The Clippers (6-20) are tied with the Sacramento Kings for 14th place.

Before the game, Lue said his players needed to make the hard plays down the stretch if they wanted to “get over the hump.” This game was over long before the final two minutes elapsed.

Whereas their last three losses were decided by nine, three and two points, this was a blowout by comparison. The Clippers, who have lost three games to the Grizzlies in less than three weeks, couldn’t blame this one on late-game blunders or missed opportunities.

The Grizzlies (12-14) dominated the fourth quarter, building a 23-point lead before settling for the 18-point victory. Reserve guard Cam Spencer scored 12 of his career-high 27 points in the final 12 minutes, burying his fifth 3-pointer with 8:34 remaining to give Memphis a 98-86 lead.

Spencer, who finished with seven 3-pointers (on 10 attempts), added another long-range shot roughly two minutes later to push the lead to 106-86.

The Clippers couldn’t generate much fight from there against a strong offensive showing by the Grizzlies. Jaren Jackson Jr. led the charge with 31 points on 13-of-18 shooting to go along with four rebounds and four assists. Jaylen Wells added 16 points and five rebounds and three assists.

The Clippers honored 12-time All-Star James Harden with a video tribute that celebrated his recent ascension into the NBA’s top 10 career scoring leaders. But the veteran point guard couldn’t match the highlights on Monday, finishing with 13 points, three rebounds and six assists.

Harden was listed as questionable before the game because of a calf injury that he sustained in the Clippers’ previous game against the Houston Rockets. Harden, who averaged 20.5 points and nine assists in the two previous games against Memphis, wore a wrap on his lower leg and lacked his usual explosiveness.

Lue said Harden wanted to play despite his limitations.

“I mean James wants to play every night and just having the mindset to try to gut it out for us was huge,” Lue said. “And you could tell he wasn’t himself throughout the whole course of the game and we just kept checking on him, kept trying to monitor it and just giving respect for just trying to get out there.”

Harden, like Kawhi Leonard, left the locker room without speaking to reporters.

Leonard led the Clippers with 21 points. Kris Dunn had 17 points and Ivica Zubac finished with six points but had 13 rebounds.

The Clippers couldn’t do much to slow the Grizzlies, who took a 56-48 lead into halftime behind Jackson’s 21-point explosion in the first half and 12 early turnovers by the Clippers.

“We didn’t score. We didn’t score the ball, especially at the start of the second quarter,” Lue said. “I thought their size hurt us when they had (Jock) Landale and Jackson in the game together, but I thought we did it to ourselves a couple of times, just not running the right offense.

“When the pressure is speeding us up that we tend to not do what we’re supposed to do. And so, they took full advantage of that. We turned the basketball over during that stretch as well and we were unorganized.”

The Clippers had 18 turnovers – 12 in the first half – compared to 11 for the Grizzlies.

The Clippers caught the Grizzlies in the third quarter, even regaining the lead (they had led by as many as nine in the first quarter) on a 3-pointer by Dunn at the 9:37 mark. But any lead the Clippers took was short-lived.

Memphis went on a 9-0 run to take a 72-64 lead with 4:46 left in the third, leading Lue to call a timeout but it didn’t change the Clippers’ error-prone ways.

Memphis won the first two meetings this season, but this matchup had a different look. For starters, two-time All-Star Ja Morant was in the lineup for Memphis after missing 10 games because of a sore right ankle, including the two against the Clippers.

Playing on a minutes restriction, Morant finished with 12 points in 21 minutes in his second game back. He finished with 21 points and 10 assists in a loss to the Utah Jazz on Friday.

While Morant was back, center Zach Edey was out because of a stress reaction in his left ankle. But the Grizzlies didn’t seem to notice.

Backup big men Landale and Santi Aldama joined Jackson in keeping Zubac away from the basket for much of the night.