The Clippers' championship-or-bust grading scale means no assessments about this squad—good or bad—can be made before the playoffs. If L.A. was to evaluate its regular-season performance, though, it might raise more than a few alarm bells. This group was basically unbeatable in December and January, but a choppy 8-10 effort since the All-Star break (entering Wednesday) has coach Ty Lue questioning his club.
"Identify for us, it's got to be toughness," Lue told reporters after back-to-back double-digit losses. "Which means physicality, mental and physical toughness, a high-powered offense— we can score in a lot of different ways—and we got to have a defensive mindset. And so right now, do we have an identity? I think, yeah, we're soft."
Teams never want to get labeled with the "S" word, especially not at this point on the calendar. Yet this group can't seem to get out of its own way lately, and these struggles have lingered long enough to assume more uneven play is in the cards.
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