The LA Clippers' disappointing crash out of the 2020 playoffs helped get Ty Lue the opportunity to become head coach. How does he prevent it from happening again in 2021?
Despite a strong regular season and a 3-1 series lead over the Denver Nuggets in the second round of the playoffs, the Clippers lost their last three games. Less than two weeks after that early postseason exit, the Clippers and head coach Doc Rivers mutually decided to part ways, clearing the path for Lue to slide over from his role as Rivers' assistant.
Now that Lue and the Clippers have agreed to a five-year contract, as reported Thursday by ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski, what's on Lue's to-do list?
Don't overreact to the playoffs
As I discussed when Rivers left the Clippers, a look at shot-quality data from Second Spectrum -- in which Clippers owner Steve Ballmer is an investor -- suggests they were done in largely by atypically hot shooting by the Nuggets and atypically poor shooting on their own part.
Given that analysis, Lue would be wise not to throw out all the good things the Clippers did leading up to their 3-1 lead over Denver because of what happened in those three games. In some ways, that's probably easier for Lue than it would be for a newcomer to the coaching staff more determined to put their own stamp on things.
In particular, I don't think Lue should look at major changes on the offensive end of the floor. Despite a poor postseason for Sixth Man Award winner Montrezl Harrell, who never got back to 100% conditioning after missing a month following the death of his grandmother, the Clippers posted the second-best postseason offensive rating among teams that played at least two playoff series. The eventual champion Los Angeles Lakers rated only a hair better offensively on a per-possession basis. There's no reason to believe based on three games that the Clippers' offense is fundamentally flawed.
Unite the cliques
Long before the Clippers' postseason downfall, there were persistent issues between the team's holdover players and the new stars they added in the summer of 2019, Kawhi Leonard and Paul George. The group that led the Clippers to an unexpected playoff appearance in 2019, when they took two games off the two-time defending champion Golden State Warriors while the Warriors' starting lineup was healthy, seemed to resent the way the newcomers came in with immediate influence over how and when they would play.
To some extent, the Clippers' front office might solve this problem for Lue. Harrell, part of the 2019 team, is an unrestricted free agent whose return is no sure thing. And if the Clippers look to change their roster via trade, fellow holdover Lou Williams is a strong candidate to head elsewhere.
If the rotation returns largely intact, it's up to Lue to find a way to get all his players on the same page. A new voice could help there, given Rivers' long relationships with the pre-2019 players he helped bring in as president of basketball operations through the summer of 2017.
Lue might have an easier time reminding the Clippers' holdover players that, as impressive as their 2018-19 season was relative to expectations, it still ended a round earlier than their 2020 playoff run. For the Clippers to get where they want in the postseason, they had to upgrade the roster. And because of their track record as stars, Leonard and George have earned the ability to dictate things in a different way than the role players they joined in L.A.
Tighten up the defense
From a tactical standpoint, I think Lue's more important task is improving the Clippers' defense. When they added Leonard and George to incumbent point guard Patrick Beverley, the Clippers looked on paper to have the best perimeter defense in the league. That never quite materialized, as the Clippers finished fifth in defensive rating in the regular season and seventh in the playoffs. (When we account for the regular-season performance of their postseason opponents, they move up to sixth.)
While shot-making was a factor, the Clippers were unable to clamp down on Denver's Jamal Murray the way they hoped after getting torched by Luka Doncic in the first round of the playoffs. The Clippers will have to be able to contain stars like that to advance deep in the playoffs.
First, Lue might want to invest more trust in starting center Ivica Zubac. The Clippers' defensive rating was 2.7 points per 100 possessions better with Zubac on the court during the regular season, according to NBA Advanced Stats data, and an incredible 9.4 points per 100 possessions better during the playoffs. Still, it took until Game 4 of the Nuggets series for Rivers to play Zubac more than 25 minutes, and even the 61-plus he played in Games 5 and 6 might not have been enough, given the Clippers were plus-16 in that span and minus-35 in the 34-plus minutes Zubac spent on the bench.
Second, I'd recommend Lue spend much of his limited practice time working on mastering the switch defensively. Per Second Spectrum tallies, they switched the third-most picks during the regular season. Still, come playoff time, their execution was lacking. Too often, the Clippers suffered miscommunications that led to breakdowns. The 1.04 points per chance they allowed on switches ranked 11th of the 16 playoff teams according to Second Spectrum tracking, and the Clippers' defensive versatility demands they do better.
After turning down the Lakers' job last summer, Lue has landed in an enviable position. The Clippers will still be among the most talented teams heading into the 2020-21 season, but after their playoff flop, expectations will no longer be as high as they were this season. If Lue can help the Clippers solve a couple of key weaknesses, their 2021 playoff run might be much longer.