Ty Lue on What Changed After Leading Early in Loss vs. Warriors

The Los Angeles Clippers' struggles continued Sunday night as they lost their fifth game in a row to the Golden State Warriors, 124-112. The Clippers were competitive early on as they led by 11 points, but Golden State's Yaxel Lendeborg's 37-point effort propelled the Warriors to a win. 

After the game, Clippers head coach Tyronn Lue talked about what went wrong as Los Angeles' performance dipped at one point, and he believes there were too many defensive breakdowns that made things tougher for them. 

"I think too many straight-line drives, getting blown by," Lue said. "There's no defense to recover when you get blown by."

Part of the reason the Clippers struggled defensively on the perimeter is that they needed to account for the Warriors' shooting ability. Golden State shot 45 percent as a team from three-point range, and it made it easier to spread the floor. 

Warriors guard De'Anthony Melton shot 6-for-8 from long range in this game and Yaxel Lendeborg also knocked down 6 three-pointers as well. Lendeborg is also someone who can play downhill, and he finished the game with 13 total field goals made. 

Tyronn Lue acknowledged that this is an issue that can't continue for the rest of the season. He wants to see his players continue to step up and take one-on-one challenges on the perimeter. 

"It's our foundation. It's what we do every night, and we just can't have those kinds of breakdowns when that's what we're teaching, and that's what we're preaching, and we understand what we should be doing, and we're not doing it every possession," Lue said. 

This is a Clippers team that is down multiple players due to injury, and those pieces could have helped the perimeter defense at the start of the year. With the losing streak moving to five and the perimeter defense continuing to be an issue, it will be interesting to see how the Clippers coaching staff will approach fixing it. 

Overall, Los Angeles is a team that is trying to find their footing with multiple players out with injuries, and things have been tough for them early on. Once they get back key pieces like Max Strus, Brandon Ingram, and Jordan Miller, their overall performance may improve, but right now there are a lot of inexperienced players seeing an uptick in minutes. 

The Clippers will play their next game against the Toronto Raptors Monday night on the second night of a back-to-back.