Tyronn Lue said the Los Angeles Clippers are “close” to turning things around, blaming late turnovers after Klay Thompson’s 3-pointer with one second left in overtime gave the Miami Heat a 117-116 win on Wednesday night.
The loss was the Clippers’ seventh straight. They are 1-7 and have not won since beating Sacramento in their Oct. 21 opener.
“No, we’re close,” Lue said. “Just not finishing the game, like you said, and just turnovers, you know, in the fourth quarter.”
Los Angeles committed 18 turnovers. Lue pointed to one late in regulation. “They got a foul, we up one, that we turn it over,” he said. “So just little things like that.”
The Clippers shot 48% from the field and made 16 of 43 3-pointers, six more than Miami.
“When you shoot good from the field, you shoot good from three, if you just take back six of those turnovers, you know, seven of those turnovers,” Lue said. “We understand what’s put us behind the eight ball. It is our turnovers on a nightly basis.”
“Teams are going to be aggressive. They’re going to do certain things to try to turn you over, like we try to do the same thing,” he said. “So, we just got to be strong with the basketball.”
On the final play, Lue said Kobe Sanders “got hung up on the screen” chasing Thompson. He said the plan was to “shade and take away the corner pass, make the ball go up.”
“But good play,” Lue said. “He made the shot.”
Thompson finished with 30 points on 8-of-17 shooting from 3-point range.
Darius Garland scored 26 points on 10-of-14 shooting and put the Clippers up 116-112 in overtime. Lue said Garland made “some huge shots down the stretch.”
Lue also pointed to a missed corner look for Max Strus, who went 3 of 11. “We got open shot in the corner for Max. We don’t make it,” Lue said.
“We played pretty well,” Lue said. “Good enough to win the game. It just didn’t go our way tonight.”
Rookie Keaton Wagler, the No. 5 pick in the 2026 draft, played only 16 minutes despite scoring 11 points and finishing plus-15. Asked why, Lue said, “That’s just what I felt like.”
Lue said Miami “attacked us in the paint” in the fourth quarter and that he needed to watch the film.
The Clippers host New Orleans on Sunday at 9 p.m. ET.
