Clippers Lose To Another Lotto Team as Lakers Triumph, 111-102

It hasn’t been a fun week in Lob City.

With a 111-102 loss to the Los Angeles Lakers tonight, the Clippers have now dropped back-to-back games to teams in the basement of the Western Conference standings.

But what would you expect? Blake Griffin had knee surgery early last week, Chris Paul left Thursday night’s game against the San Antonio Spurs with a strained hamstring, and now J.J. Redick left tonight’s game with a sore hamstring. Not many teams in the NBA can compete nightly without their three leading scorers.

The team is officially in purgatory. It’s hard to totally classify these games as “bad losses”, even if the effort has been less than stellar, because we aren’t seeing the real Clippers due to the injury situation. It’s pretty clear that any win without those guys would be considered a stolen victory.

There’s not much to do for the Clippers except wait for their stars, or at least one of them, to return. They won’t beat many teams with both Paul and Griffin in suits.

Even encouraging performances by supporting cast guys, like Raymond Felton (8 points, 10 rebounds, 6 assists, 2 steals, 2 blocks) and Brandon Bass (8 points, 4 rebounds), aren’t enough to lift a team to victory if their stars aren’t there to do the heavy lifting.