Los Angeles Clippers head coach Tyronn Lue expressed frustration with his team’s lack of toughness following their 118-100 defeat against the Minnesota Timberwolves on Tuesday night.
In his postgame comments, Lue remarked, “Teams are going to make a run. They’re a good team. Number two, three team in the West. They’re a good team without [Karl-Anthony Towns]. Good teams are going to make runs.
“It’s about how you deal with it and how you process it and move on and get to the next action, get to the next play. We just can’t, when teams make a run, just give in.
“They played well. They played tougher than we did for sure. No doubt. Pisses me off when it comes to that. Just being mentally tougher, just mentally tougher when stuff gets hard. You got to get tougher.
“So those are things we got to do. We can talk about schemes, we can talk about a lot of other things, but we just got to be tougher mentally and physically. Got to be better.”
Lue’s frustration was evident as he emphasized the importance of mental fortitude in overcoming challenges on the court.
When asked about his team’s mental toughness, Lue affirmed, “Yeah, we have mental toughness. So when things don’t go right, you just got to get tougher. If we can’t score, we can’t let them score. It’s okay. It’s part of the game. Like we did in Minnesota. That was mentally tough. You score 89 points and win the game. That’s fine.
“However you got to win, win the game. It’s not about shots, it’s not about minutes, it’s not about whatever. It’s about winning the game however you got to do it. We have shown that, but tonight we didn’t.”
