Bad Habits Haunting Los Angeles Clippers

A nine-point lead with just 1:26 to go wasn’t enough for the Los Angeles Clippers to come up victorious in Brooklyn against the Brooklyn Nets on Monday night. Against the Cleveland Cavaliers on Thursday night, the Clippers were blown out of the gym from the start. The lowlights of what feels like an increasingly longer road trip came by the way of Blake Griffin’s bro-five foul on Alan Anderson in the loss to the Nets, as well as Matt Barnes‘ ugly ejection in Thursday’s loss.

These shortcomings serve as a torment reminder for the Clippers, that they don’t have enough poise to closeout tight games on the road, nor can they keep their cool. These losses aren’t rare occurrences for the Clippers, rather they serve as chilling reminders of past playoff nightmares that have doomed their past two seasons.

Against a sinking Nets’ ship, the Clippers blew a game they had wrapped up, which allowed for an extremely disappointing finish. The Nets’ loss was just the fourth, in a season-high eight-game road trip. Instead of putting the loss behind them, the Clippers fell on their face in Cleveland, and seem ready for an early return home to Los Angeles.

These embarrassing outings against the supposedly inferior Eastern Conference have come on the heels of the Clippers’ best win of the season – a 20-point victory against the defending-champion San Antonio Spurs. The Clippers mid-season roadblock has come at a bad time for a team, whose woes are becoming strangely familiar during the Grffin and Chris Paul era. Now at 2-3 on this Grammy Award road trip, the Clippers desperately need a win in order to stray the ship straight.

In the past two seasons, the Clippers played well enough to nab solid playoff positioning. With higher projections than ever this season, the team has picked a bad time to play inconsistent, as a legitimate six or seven teams can come make a deep playoff run out West.

Most of all, the Clippers cannot afford to lose winnable games such as the ones they’ve had against the Nets. Actually competing with the Cavaliers, well, that’s wishful thinking at the moment. With a championship coach, two bona fide All-Stars, a top NBA big man in Deandre Jordan, and new ownership in place, Los Angeles seemed like a dream, but now it’s turning into a nightmare. For fans of the Clippers, have fun sleeping off this latest debacle.

Zach Fetaru is a writer for www.RantSports.com. Follow him on Twitter @fanforlife1988 ”like him” on Facebook and add him to your network on Google.