Tyronn Lue learned to coach more than a decade ago by following former Boston assistant Tom Thibodeau into the Celtics’ office for 5:30 a.m. film breakdowns. He popped into the office of Danny Ainge, the team’s top basketball executive, for conversations.
His job, he admitted, didn’t really come with a formal description — then-coach Doc Rivers and Ainge created the role as a way of adding to the staff a former point guard they believed had promise on the sideline. But one of the responsibilities that eventually fell under Lue’s purview: Helping deliver honest assessments to stars such as Rajon Rondo, Paul Pierce, Ray Allen and Kevin Garnett.
“To tell those guys the truth, look them in the eye and let them know they messed up really helped me along the way,” Lue said.
More than a decade later, at nearly the season’s midway point, the truth about the Clippers didn’t change much after a 116-110 loss in TD Garden to the Celtics: Though they have at times flirted with their Finals-caliber potential, the Clippers (21-16) have just as often fallen just short of it.
In a Western Conference this muddled where no single contender has distanced itself from the chase pack, the injuries and inconsistency haven’t cost the Clippers much ground in the seeding race. But with a front-loaded schedule that features only 21 games after the All-Star break, there will soon be increasingly fewer opportunities to find their foothold, to leave games like this feeling as though they’d put the pieces all together.
“We got the guys to make plays, make shots, we got the guys to get stops,” said Paul George, who scored 24 points. “We got all the recipe for the little stuff but it’s just how we play, regardless of who we play, it’s how we play.”
When the Celtics clogged the paint with size, the Clippers eventually cracked the code. When Boston used a 17-4 run to take a 13-point lead with three-minutes to play, the Clippers responded by outscoring Boston by 14 over the next 15 minutes.
But in the final quarter they were outrebounded by five, managed zero second-chance points and turned the ball over five times, each a microcosm of season-long trends that have hurt the team.
After a jumper by Kawhi Leonard cut the lead to three with 62 seconds left, a defensive stop by the Clippers set up George to dribble into the lane on the other end, the volume rapidly rushing out of TD Garden. Derrick White, a guard, met George as he rose and stuffed George’s shot.
Then with two seconds left, Clippers forward Marcus Morris Sr. tried a layup with the Clippers down five — a shot rejected by Al Horford.
Clippers forward Norman Powell takes a three-point shot in front of Boston Celtics guard Payton Pritchard during the first half.
(Charles Krupa / Associated Press)
With each roster at full strength, this matchup presented itself as a late-December preview of what might materialize in early June, but Leonard, who finished with 26 points and eight rebounds and in moments willed the offense back to life, viewed this not as a measuring stick against one of last season’s playoff finalists.
“I’m just measuring us off ourself really,” he said.
What has that measurement told Leonard?
“We still got a lot to improve on. Everything, everything,” he said. “If we want to be the last team standing we got to get better at everything — even if we were the No. 1 seed we still have to get better, each and every day.”
That includes getting better at not easing into games and settling for jumpers, as George described it. Unlike during the Clippers’ 20-point win against Boston three weeks earlier, Celtics big men Robert Williams and Horford both played, and George took one shot inside the paint in his first 17 minutes. Leonard had one paint shot in the first quarter and one true rim attempt in his 18 first-half minutes.
“We were getting stagnant worrying about who’s guarding who instead of just running our offense and attacking who we want to attack afterward,” Lue said. That changed after a late first-half timeout, and again at halftime when the point was emphasized again, and the Clippers would score 42 points in the paint.
But as the Clippers began to find routes inside, so did Boston — particularly when starting center Ivica Zubac was off the floor. The Clippers won Zubac’s nearly 30 minutes — in which he posted 13 points and 11 rebounds — by 10 points. When Zubac checked in with 3:05 remaining, Boston went scoreless on its next four possessions, stops that kept comeback hopes alive. When he checked out with 1:37 to go, the Clippers stopped the next four Boston shots, as well. But the Celtics also grabbed two offensive rebounds with 13 and 11 seconds to play, respectively, which led to free throws made by Brown that pushed Boston’s lead from a precious three to five.
Boston ultimately won the minutes when Zubac was off the floor
by 16.
Luke Kennard, a 47% three-point shooter, did not attempt a field goal, only the fourth time since joining the Clippers that has happened — but in the three other instances, Kennard played fewer than five minutes. Against Boston, he played 17. Lue’s rotation used nine players, though Terance Mann played only five, and zero after halftime. It’s the fourth time in five games Mann has played fewer than 15 minutes.
“The more concerning thing,” George said, “is our trips to the line,” after the Clippers shot 14 free throws, eight fewer than Boston. George later reposted on Instagram a video of his charge on Jaylen Brown and Marcus Smart with the caption, “Are the refs fined for these?”
Fully healthy to start the game, Reggie Jackson left with a bandage over his nose after taking an elbow to the face, and when the play didn’t result in a foul on White, Jackson tried approaching official Matt Myers, who was at the scorer’s table, before being restrained by teammates and earned a technical in the process.
“Just emotions,” he said.
He later tweaked an ankle but played a featured role in the fourth quarter despite a limp. Also unavailable for long stretches was Nicolas Batum, who turned an ankle and played only eight minutes.
