Lue wasn't happy with a plethora of things from the Clippers on Tuesday night.
The Los Angeles Clippers saw their five-game winning streak come to an end on Tuesday night in ugly fashion, falling 114-104 to the Portland Trail Blazers at Intuit Dome.
The loss dropped the Clippers to 39-37 on the season and tightened the Western Conference play-in race, with Portland climbing to 39-38 and sitting just a half game back.
After the game, head coach Ty Lue didn't have much of an explanation for what happened.
When asked about where things went wrong, he was blunt about Portland simply wanting it more than his team did.
"I don't know. B Shaw (Brian Shaw) brought up a few times you know but I thought they came in and played well," Lue said. "I thought they were you know more aggressive. They attacked more. They were more physical and they came in with a purpose and they beat us."
Portland Brought the Energy That Los Angeles Didn't
Lue's words matched what everyone saw on the floor.
The Blazers came out with an edge from the jump, attacking the paint and crashing the glass while the Clippers looked like a team expecting to coast through a home game.
Portland built an 18-point lead before halftime and the Clippers never seriously threatened after that.
Kawhi Leonard led the team with 23 points and kept his consecutive 20-point games streak alive at 52, but his effort alone wasn't enough to dig Los Angeles out of that hole.
Darius Garland added 20 and Brook Lopez finished with 18, but the rest of the roster couldn't get anything going.
Portland got a monster night from Deni Avdija with 28 points, 11 rebounds and eight assists, while Jrue Holiday poured in 30 and hit seven threes.
The Blazers outrebounded the Clippers by a wide margin and played with the kind of desperation you'd expect from a team fighting for its postseason life.
Why Jackson's Absence Still Looms Large
And the Clippers are dealing with all of this while missing a key piece.
Isaiah Jackson has been averaging 6.7 points and 5.3 rebounds while shooting 63.7 percent from the field this season, and even though those numbers don't jump off the page, his role as the only other true center behind Brook Lopez makes him essential.
Without Jackson, who has missed the last two games with a right ankle sprain, Lue has had to lean on Nicolas Batum and John Collins at the five and neither is built for extended minutes there.
The Clippers got Jackson and Bennedict Mathurin from Indiana at the trade deadline in exchange for Ivica Zubac, Kobe Brown and draft capital, and the deal was supposed to give them more flexibility.
But losing Jackson to the ankle injury right when the season matters most has exposed just how thin that frontcourt really is.
Lopez is 37 years old and can only handle so many minutes, and when he sits the Clippers lose size and physicality, which is exactly what Portland exploited on Tuesday.
What Comes Next
With only six games left in the regular season, the margin for error is basically gone.
The Clippers host San Antonio on Thursday and still have a rematch with Portland on April 10, and every game carries massive play-in implications.
Getting Jackson back would help, but the bigger concern is whether this team can match the intensity of opponents who are playing like every game is do-or-die.
Because on Tuesday, Portland played that way and the Clippers didn't.