Paul George told NBA reporters that the Los Angeles Clippers “don’t have an identity” after losing to the Atlanta Hawks.
The Clippers have lost four of their last five games and are just 8-10 since they finished their seven-game Grammy road trip 6-1 and stood at 34-15 overall on February 5.
“I mean that’s what we’re appearing to look like, which is not good,” George said, via ESPN. “We want to be a team that’s consistent and we want to establish an identity. I’ve always spoken about having an identity and I think it’s extremely important. Right now, I don’t think we have an identity.”
The Clippers are 42-25 on the season. They are in fourth place in the Western Conference standings.
LAC is 12th in the NBA in points per game and 11th in points per game allowed. Head coach Tyronn Lue cited taking care of the basketball, transition defense, offensive rebounding and spacing as the four areas the team has to be consistently good at moving forward.
“When they do it, it works,” Lue said. “When you have so much talent and you have guys that can do it so easily, they don’t understand that your talent is great, but the talent’s got to be for the team as well.
“Maybe it’s me. Maybe I got to do something a little different to make sure that we’re doing what we’re supposed to do. … [But] I’ll never really overreact because I know we’re a good team … If you want to win, I know what it looks like. I’ve been there, I’ve seen it.”
The Clippers have never reached the NBA Finals in franchise history. This year’s squad is under a lot of pressure to make the Finals since George, Kawhi Leonard, James Harden and Russell Westbrook are getting older.
“Just seeing what we want to do,” Leonard said. “That’s it. What type of team we want to be. If everybody’s saying they want to be one of the last teams standing, then we got to go out and do it.”
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