Josh Smith: 'We're not as mentally strong as we could be'
The Los Angeles Clippers feature two of the league's 10 best players between Chris Paul and Blake Griffin, but they just can't seem to close out games.
The Clippers, improbably, hold the league's sixth-worst net rating in clutch scenarios this season. They've been outscored by 19.3 points per 100 possessions in the clutch, and have suffered two humiliating meltdowns against the Golden State Warriors, blowing separate leads of 10 and 23 points within the opening month of the season.
Clippers power forward Josh Smith chalks it up to a lack of mental fortitude.
"We need to fight through that barrier," Smith told Dan Woike of the OC County Register. "I feel like mentally, we're not as mentally strong as we can be. I feel like sometimes when we're up and a team's coming up, there's some strain on our end.
"We just need to be mentally strong - a swagger where we're like 'we're still going to win this basketball game,'" Smith added.
Smith, a newcomer to the Clippers after signing as a free agent, has the benefit of perspective. He witnessed the Clippers' most horrifying meltdown during Game 6 of the Western Conference Finals, where they somehow squandered a 19-point edge late in the third quarter against Smith's Houston Rockets.
So when Smith says the Clippers lack composure, he knows exactly what he's talking about.
There's certainly a case to be made that it's all mental. The Clippers' net rating in each of the first three quarters of the game are positive (1.0, 3.5, 3.4), and yet they always seem to struggle when it matters most.
Of course, there's the mitigating factor of DeAndre Jordan's poor free-throw shooting. Teams frequently intentionally foul Jordan to disrupt the team's offense, which stunts the the Clippers' flow and creates a palpable awkwardness between the team and Jordan.
Injuries to J.J. Redick and Paul certainly haven't helped the problem, either.
Regardless, the Clippers are far too talented to allow the trend to continue. They ranked as a top-10 team by Net Rating in the clutch last season, and top 5 the season before, all with essentially the same core.
Los Angeles might have some mental hurdles to overcome, but the team is far too good to continue playing so poorly.