NBA News: Kawhi Leonard targets Clippers teammates with harsh criticism following loss to Lakers

The Los Angeles Clippers endured their second consecutive loss, falling 122-97 to the Los Angeles Lakers at the Intuit Dome on Tuesday. After the game, Kawhi Leonard expressed frustration with the team’s performance, offering a strong critique to his teammates and sending a message about their struggles this NBA season.

“I feel like our second unit has to get better,” Leonard admitted during a post-game interview shared by Hoops Chef on YouTube. “Especially with me still being on a minutes restriction, it’s tough for Ty-Lue (Clippers head coach) to find those lineups that work.”

Kawhi pointed to a specific moment in the game where the team faltered. “The start of that second quarter, it’s kind of been like that since I’ve been back,” he remarked. “You’re not seeing the consistent minutes that you were seeing at the beginning of the year.”

In truth, the Los Angeles Clippers were dominated throughout the entire game by their opponents, struggling to make a comeback. They ended the first quarter 16 points behind and could not recover the deficit, which continued to grow as the game unfolded.

Leonard, in particular, had an uncharacteristically quiet night. In the 22 minutes he played, he recorded 11 points, 2 assists, and 6 rebounds—numbers that mirrored his performance in the Clippers’ earlier loss to the Toronto Raptors.

Head coach Tyronn Lue of the LA Clippers reacts during a game against the Golden State Warriors on November 18, 2024.

Kawhi Leonard’s focus on improvement

In analyzing what the Los Angeles Clippers need to improve upon, Leonard was direct. “We all get paid to play this game and leave it all on the floor,” he stated, underscoring that there are no excuses for not giving maximum effort in order to achieve good results.

The forward then echoed his head coach’s sentiment: “We have to, like Ty-Lue said, look ourselves in the mirror first and be able to come out here and do our job. That’s where it starts. Can’t look over our shoulder for help with those things. Playing hard, it comes within.”

Tyronn Lue’s concerns over defense

During the post-game press conference in Los Angeles, Tyronn Lue, head coach of the Los Angeles Clippers, pointed to one of the team’s major issues. “We’re just not getting off to good starts,” he said. “We’re not locking in defensively, like 45 points in the first quarter. That’s way too many and so we got to take pride in guarding.”

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Lue also stressed that the team had been repeating mistakes. “Three games in a row, we’ve come out with not a great defensive performance,” the coach acknowledged. “We gotta be better. We gotta look ourselves in the mirror and think about, do we want to win or not. That’s gotta be our mentality.”