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Uhm Young Mi-sook, ESPN staff writer
LOS ANGELES — The Los Angeles Clippers haven't been the same team since returning from their longest and most successful road trip of the season in early February.
On Sunday, the Clippers faced the Atlanta Hawks without injured Trae Young at Crypto.com Arena, losing by as many as 29 points, 110-93.
The Clippers (42-25) have lost four of their last five games since Feb. 5, when they ended a seven-game Grammy road trip with a 6-1 record and are now 34-15 overall. , with only 8 wins and 10 losses.
“It's between us and our ears,” franchise star Kawhi Leonard said. “We have to go out and do it.”
Paul George agreed when asked if the Clippers look like a team that has veterans and believes they can turn things around when needed.
“I mean, it's not good for us to look like that,” George said. “We want to be a consistent team and we want to have an identity. I've always talked about having an identity and I think that's very important.
“Right now, I don’t think we have an identity.”
The Clippers played their best basketball in December and January, going 26-5 in hot weather and looking like a title contender with new acquisition James Harden.
But Ty Lue's team was crushed. The Clippers lost Russell Westbrook (left hand fracture) indefinitely on January 31st. On Sunday, Harden returned from a two-game absence and played through strain in his left shoulder, finishing with nine points and nine assists on 3-of-10 shooting.
Leonard and George have battled injuries recently, and Norman Powell missed the loss to Atlanta on crutches with a left lower leg contusion.
Playing for the sixth time in nine days, the Clippers lacked energy and looked lackluster at times against Atlanta. When asked what he could do as one of the team's leaders to pull the Clippers out of their current slump, Leonard said it was action.
“We're just thinking about what we want to do,” said Leonard, who scored 17 of his 28 points in the first quarter. “That's it. What type of team we want to be. If everyone says we want to be one of the last teams standing, we need to do that.”
Lue said the coaching staff has repeatedly told the team what to do and the habits they should practice. But the team did it all in one go. Lue cited care for the basketball, transition defense, offensive rebounding and spacing as four areas where the team must consistently excel every night.
“If they do it, it works,” Lu said. “When you have this much talent and you have players who do it so easily, they don't understand that your talent is great, but it's also for the good of the team. .
“Maybe it's me. Maybe we have to do things a little differently to make sure we do what we need to do… [But] I'm not going to overreact in any way because I know we're a good team…I know what it's like if you want to win. I've been there, I've seen it. ”
