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Clippers can’t hold off Pacers, drop 3rd straight game

February 7, 2025

INGLEWOOD — The Clippers’ landscape changed over the past three days, adding new faces and clearing lockers. But the biggest difference came in the team’s play and attitude.

That was for at least for the first 18 minutes of Thursday night’s game against the Indiana Pacers.

The Clippers, having received Coach Tyronn Lue’s message about playing hard and competing, came out intent to put aside their listless performance in their previous game.

But somewhere in the second quarter, amid a barrage of turnovers and missed opportunities, the Clippers lost their purpose and fell, 119-112, at the Intuit Dome.

Led by forward Pascal Siakam, the Pacers handed the Clippers (28-23) their third consecutive loss.

Siakam had a game-high 33 points on 13-of-16 shooting, including five 3-pointers, and grabbed 11 rebounds. Bennedict Mathurin added 25 points, six rebounds and four assists.

Lue had been upset with his team’s passive play against the Lakers on Tuesday night and addressed the players before facing the Pacers.

“They owned it and (acknowledged) we have to be better all around the board,” Lue said.

His words seemed to get lost against the Pacers, who picked up the pace late in the first half (they outscored the Clippers 42-19 in the second quarter) and kept pushing until they came away with a hard-fought victory, despite balanced scoring by the Clippers.

Asked what turned the game in the Pacers’ favor, Clippers star Kawhi Leonard said, “That second quarter.”

“Them getting out in transition turnovers, Pascal being great, knocking out three or four 3-pointers in a row and obviously in the third quarter as well, just getting too many of these easy baskets,” he added.

The Pacers had 31 assists on 43 baskets and seven turnovers to the Clippers’ 19 turnovers.

“We got off to a good start, so you can’t blame that,” Lue said. “(We) just got to secure the game. Like you said, you can’t have six turnovers in a row, six bad possessions. It’s just hard to win games that way.”

It wasn’t for a lack of scoring.

All-Star guard James Harden and Norman Powell each had 22 points and Leonard finished with 19 points in 34 minutes – his longest stint this season.

Ivica Zubac had 18 points and 15 rebounds, Amir Coffey had 14 points and Derrick Jones Jr. added 12 points.

And Lue said it wasn’t the Clippers’ highly rated defense that failed. It was more the Pacers’ high-power transition game that caused the Clippers problems.

“I thought it was our offense that allowed them to get out and transition,” Lue said. “Like you said, having six straight turnovers, which allowed him to get out and transition, get some easy baskets and so I got to take a look at it. But overall, I thought our defense was pretty good.”

Harden took a more pragmatic view of the loss, saying that every team suffers bad losses during an 82-game season.

“We just gave them comfort shots and gave them too many opportunities off turnovers,” Harden said.

“Think everybody’s trying to be consistent throughout the course of the game, throughout the course of a year. So, luckily, we got 37, 40 more games to figure it out.”

The Clippers appeared to have solved some of their second-quarter problems after halftime.

They clamped down on the Pacers in the third quarter and kept up the pressure in the fourth, never letting Indiana gain more than a two-point advantage after Coffey hit two free throws with 11:01 left to play for a 90-88 lead.

The teams largely traded baskets for much of the final period.

Jones gave the Clippers a 105-100 lead with 3:31 left, but the Pacers closed to within two when Siakam’s fifth 3-pointer started a 19-7 closing run. A 3-pointer and layup by Haliburton gave the Pacers a 108-105 lead with less than two minutes to play, and they made nine of 10 free throws down the stretch.

“We understand that we’re a defensive-minded team first,” Lue said. “Everything else takes care of itself and we haven’t done it the last three games. And so, they understood that.

“We just got to be better. And it doesn’t mean you’re going to win every game, but the way you lose and how you lose is something totally different.”

Two days after their loss Tuesday, the Clippers came out firing, making seven of their first 10 shots. They continued to find openings around the basket against the Pacers’ improved defense that has helped them turn around their season.

Indiana started the season 10-15 but has won 12 of its last 15 games and 18 of the past 24.

“We’ve gotten better defensively and that’s going to continue to be our main focus,” Pacers coach Rick Carlisle said.

The Clippers, however, fell into familiar bad habits late in the first half with careless plays and turning the ball over. The Pacers were quick to take advantage of 11 first-half miscues by the Clippers to turn a 22-point deficit into a 64-61 halftime lead.

Trailing 39-17, Indiana went on a 15-0 run to trim the Clippers’ lead to 44-37. Zubac stopped the flow with a turnaround hook shot at the 7:10 mark. After Thomas Bryant’s dunk, Powell hit back-to-back baskets to push the lead back to double figures at 51-41.

But the Pacers, playing without center Myles Turner, didn’t fold. They continued to push the Clippers and eventually took a 62-58 lead on seven consecutive points by Siakam. A 3-point play by Mathurin closed out a 42-point second quarter by Indiana.

Turner had gone to the locker room to be evaluated for a concussion in the first quarter after he was inadvertently hit in the face by Mathurin while going for a rebound. Turner stayed down on the court for several seconds, got up and then staggered while making his way to the bench.

The Clippers might have blamed the lapse on being short-handed. Earlier in the day, they sent Terance Mann and Bones Hyland to the Atlanta Hawks for Bogdan Bogdanovic and three second-round picks. They also sent Kevin Porter Jr. to the Milwaukee Bucks for Marjon Beauchamp.

Orange County Register

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Clippers can’t hold off Pacers, drop 3rd straight game

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