Los Angeles Clippers Looking to Build Trust, Identity to Get Back on Track

LOS ANGELES — Trust was the word of the evening at the Los Angeles Clippers' postgame press conference on Monday night.

Trust in their defensive effort. Trust in each other to make shots. Trust in their system. Trust that they'll start playing like they did last season, when they ripped off a franchise-record 57 wins.

The Chicago Bulls certainly weren't lacking for trust. They moved the ball beautifully on offense, racking up 28 assists on 39 baskets in their 105-89 victory. Six Bulls scored in double figures, not including Derrick Rose and Pau Gasol, who both missed the game due to injury—Rose with a tweaked hamstring, Gasol with a strained calf.

The Bulls went down 46-32 with 3:44 left in the first half, but they never appeared to lose trust in one another. They finished the second quarter on a 16-4 run and carried that momentum into the third, when they held the Clippers to 14 points and tallied 31 of their own on the other end.

"The other guys that played tonight, they get paid just like we do," Chris Paul said after the game. "And that's not their first time playing without their guys."

Not after Rose missed most of the previous two seasons with knee injuries. Not after the Bulls battled all manner of other maladies to keep their six-year playoff streak alive.

As Chicago's trust strengthened, L.A.'s seemed to wane. The Clippers had as many turnovers (10) as assists (10) after the Bulls' onslaught began. Their offense devolved into a string of isolations, as if Jamal Crawford would always be there to bail them out with the sorts of circus shots he hit in the second frame.

"I thought our trust was broken today," Doc Rivers lamented at his presser. "I thought we tried to do it individually. That is the old way we played. We had the ball in one spot. We made some miraculous shots, but it is hard to beat a team with great defense that way. That was proved tonight."

Crawford's circus act, though, was far from the problem. He chipped in 24 points on 10-of-17 shooting off the bench and practically carried the Clippers to the double-digit lead that, at the time, seemed insurmountable for the Rose-and-Gasol-less Bulls.

The rest of L.A.'s wings—J.J. Redick, Matt Barnes and Reggie Bullock—combined for 12 points on 4-of-20 shooting, after amassing 29 points on 17 shots against the Suns on Saturday.

Not that this had been a trustworthy bunch on the whole this season. Redick and Barnes came into the game against Chicago having hit just over 40 percent of their shots. Bullock had worked his way into just two contests prior to Phoenix's visit.

"[Our trust] is not where it needs to be at, and a lot of that falls on me with offensive execution," Paul insisted. "We just got to keep trying to get everyone involved and be aggressive."

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Paul wasn't particularly aggressive himself. Two nights after piling up a season-high 32 points, Paul managed just 12 points on 11 shots, albeit amidst plenty of pressure applied by Chicago's stifling defense.

Blake Griffin, meanwhile, was nowhere to be found for most of the game. He had his jumper working early, nailing four straight shots from beyond 16 feet on the way to a 12-point opening frame.

But that early trust—there's that word again—in his jumper betrayed Griffin, who finished with 19 points on 7-of-15 from the field, from there on out. He missed his next six jumpers and four of his next six free throws before finally scratching again from the field...at the 4:47 mark of the fourth quarter. By that point, it was already too late. The Clippers couldn't cut the deficit any closer than seven before the Bulls blew it back open.

"We tried to force things, but it was in a way that we were trying to get something going," Griffin explained. "I don't think it was a selfish thing...I think we were just searching. And instead of relying on the offense, I think we just searched a little too hard."

The Clippers will have to continue their search far from the confines of Staples Center. They'll finish up the month of November on a seven-game road trip, beginning with the Orlando Magic on Wednesday. Perhaps that time away from home—huddling on charter flights and in hotels and locker rooms across the country—will afford this team the opportunities it needs to rebuild that trust that characterized this club's rise into the West's upper echelon last season but has since disappeared.

"We've just got to find it," Paul said of the Clippers' collective trust. "It seems like it's easy. We find it in spurts, but we've just got to sustain it."

They certainly haven't this season. Their offense, the NBA's most efficient in 2013-14, remains in the middle of the pack through their first nine contests of the current campaign. On the other end, their defense has flipped from in the top 10 last season to the bottom 10 now, despite a cast of characters that closely resembles its predecessor.

Added Griffin: "Trust our system, trust our game plans, trust our system. Once we do that, we'll be fine."

Until then, the Clippers will keep searching—searching for what they had before and the championship-caliber trust they hope to forge by the time the fall turns to winter and winter turns to spring. 

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