Ty Lue Is Pressing All the Buttons But Nothing Is Working for Clippers

Ty Lue is trying everything, but nothing seems to be able to fix the Clippers' awful defense.

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The Los Angeles Clippers suffered yet another deflating loss on Tuesday, this time at the hands of their city rivals, Lakers. The Clippers couldn't find answers for Luka Doncic all game, who walked into a 43-point, 13-assist performance without breaking much of a sweat. They weren't able to guard him one-on-one and got carved up every time they sent double teams, and ended up allowing a whopping 144 points per 100 possessions for the game, per Cleaning the Glass data. Now, the Clippers are the third-worst defense in the league with a 122.7 defensive rating, only above the lowly Nets and the Wizards.

The Clippers' lack of answers against the Lakers was difficult to watch at times. The ease at which Luka Doncic, Austin Reaves, and LeBron got to the rim without much resistance was alarming. The trio scored 99 points on 59 field goal attempts, demonstrating how bad of a job the Clippers did forcing other Lakers to beat them.

Ty Lue Can't Find a Solution to the Clippers' Defensive Woes

The most concerning part of it all is the fact that nothing Ty Lue is trying seems to be working. Lue cut Brook Lopez from the rotation against the Lakers, using John Collins as the backup center. This helped juice the offense, but made the defense even worse. The Lakers shot 85.2% at the rim and rebounded 37.8% of their own misses, two of the worst marks in any Clippers game this season.

Lue also gave Kobe Brown more of a look, who played a season-high 21 minutes. He had a few moments, especially a very nice pass to Kobe Sanders on a back cut in the second half, but he wasn't able to make much of an impact defensively. The Clippers are desperately trying to inject more youth and athleticism to the rotation, but haven't found groups that work so far.

Since the start of the season, Lue is throwing everything at the wall. He cut Bogdan Bogdanovic and Chris Paul from the rotation at certain points, only to go back to them later. Now, it's Brook Lopez's turn to ride the bench.

The truth is, the Clippers are a disaster any time James Harden or Ivica Zubac sits. They are not good with them on the floor, either, with only a -4.5 net rating, but they are nowhere near the embarrassment that they are with them on the bench. Their depth, which was considered to be a strength of the Clippers before the season, has completely abandoned them so far. Until Lue finds combinations that work, they may be too far down in the Western Conference standings.