The Los Angeles Clippers have seen this one before. They lost by 10 points to the Golden State Warriors on Friday despite holding a 22-point lead with just over three minutes left in the third quarter.
The defeat has resurfaced questions about the Clippers' ability to close out games, prompting star duo Kawhi Leonard and Paul George to acknowledge that improvements are necessary.
"We just have to change, pretty much," Leonard said postgame, according to ESPN's Ohm Youngmisuk. "We've got to change it. We've got to get better."
"We just want to - just be great as a unit, just demand greatness out of everybody," George said. "We got to be better. All of us included. This was a team loss, more than anything. We just got to get better. We'll work on it."
With the loss, the Clippers fell off the pace with the Los Angeles Lakers, who now sit first in the West at 7-3 after defeating the Chicago Bulls on Friday.
The Clippers could only watch on as Warriors star Stephen Curry scored 24 of his 38 points in the second half. George believes the loss will serve as a turning point for his team, which has gone 2-3 in the new year after a 4-1 start to the season.
"I think this is good that something like this happened for this team so early," he said. "Because (the) fact of the matter is, we have to be a better closing-out team."
