NBA playoffs: Time is running out on the LA Clippers

By Martin Rogers
FOX Sports Columnist

Paul George says he is "not concerned" as the LA Clippers’ season tumbles toward a premature end. 

Ty Lue has the same evaluation — "not concerned" — as his squad looks vacantly for answers against Luka Doncic and the Dallas Mavericks. 

Kawhi Leonard doesn’t say much, but he doesn’t look too concerned, either, as his time in Los Angeles seemingly rumbles to a close with nothing to show for it.

How to fix the Clippers? Hmm, how about becoming concerned?

Now, stress doesn’t do anyone any good, but how about some urgency, some kind of a response to looming failure? The Clippers, supposedly one of basketball’s finest collections of players the past two seasons, are hurtling toward the brink of another doomed campaign, and it looks like they’re still waiting for the alarm to go off and the coffee to be brewed.

The NBA is too competitive to sleepwalk your way through any series, against anyone, especially a marauding, transcendent talent such as Doncic, who has a couple of pieces of added motivation powering his elbow.

Doncic was hurt by losing to the Clippers in six games a year ago and wants to atone for it. And he’s atoning aplenty, rustling up 31 and 39 points in the first two games, both Dallas road wins that were more comfortable than the 10-point and six-point margins would indicate.

In case he needed an extra jolt as the series moves to Texas, Doncic just found out that this was what the Clippers wanted, having tanked their way to fourth place specifically to avoid the Los Angeles Lakers in the bracket, knowing it would bring them this first-round matchup.

"I didn’t even know they were doing that until somebody told me in the first game," Doncic said in reference to the Clippers' losing their final two regular-season games against the woeful Houston Rockets and Oklahoma City Thunder. 

"If you want to win a championship, at the end of the day, you’ve got to win against everybody," he added. "We just go out there and play."

When Doncic "just" plays, with freedom and a sense of fun, it is a problem for whomever is on the other side of the court. All things considered, concern would be an entirely appropriate emotion for LA right now. A 22-year-old superstar in the best form of his life, an 0-2 hole and statistics that tell us dropping the first two at home leads to a series loss 87% of the time? Maybe just a little worry.

"There is none," George said. "We got to rise to the occasion. Fact of the matter is if we don't, we're done for. There's no level of concern."

His coach agreed. "They won two games on our home floor, and now we got to return the favor," Lue said.

If that doesn’t happen, there are some serious ramifications at stake. When Leonard came to LA after leading the Toronto Raptors to the 2019 title, he demanded George join him for the ride. The idea was to dominate, against LeBron James and Anthony Davis’ Lakers in the battle for the city and against the rest of the league as well.

That hasn’t worked out. A 3-1 lead against the Denver Nuggets was surrendered in the bubble, and now there is this, the possibility that by Sunday, the team’s campaign could be over and that the machinations for a Leonard exit might begin. The rumor mill is already linking him with the Miami Heat as he again becomes eligible for free agency.

FOX Bet still has the Clippers as sixth-favorite to win the title, at +1300, just ahead of the Mavericks at +1600. It’s not impossible, but it feels like a heck of a long way away. Although the Lakers responded to adversity by leveling their series against the Phoenix Suns in Game 2, the Clippers had no defensive answer Tuesday, getting mauled by Doncic and picked apart by the open 3-pointers he fed to others, with Tim Hardaway Jr. knocking down six of eight.

"It is over," FOX Sports NBA analyst Chris Broussard said. "[The] Clippers are done. Finished. Toast. Dallas is just better. The evidence is overwhelming. On paper, the Clippers look better, but when they get on the court and face each other, sometimes matchups make games. I just don’t think the Clippers are mentally tough enough to bounce back from a 2-0 deficit."

Not tough enough, not concerned enough, not prepared enough – somewhere in there lies the answer as the clock threatens to run out on Leonard, George and the Clippers.

Or maybe even, for all that talent, just not good enough.

Martin Rogers is a columnist for FOX Sports and the author of the FOX Sports Insider Newsletter. You can subscribe to the newsletter here.