LOS ANGELES – The 2021-22 season continues to be a roller coaster for Paul George and the LA Clippers. The team lost four of their first five games of the season, but followed it up with seven straight wins. Now, they've dropped six of their last nine games since that seven game streak, continuing what's been a frustrating start to this season without Kawhi Leonard.

In Monday night's loss to the New Orleans Pelicans, the Clippers were out-rebounded on the offensive glass 14-4, but it was 13-1 before both teams pulled their respective starters. For the night, the Clippers were outscored in the paint 66-32, outscored in transition 22-6, and outscored on second-chance points 18-4.

“We couldn’t do anything,” Clippers head coach Tyronn Lue said after the loss.

Paul George did all he can to keep his club within reach, finishing with 27 points, three rebounds, and three assists. He also had seven turnovers, giving him 15 total on the back-to-back set.

It was Jonas Valanciunas and his career night that did the Clippers in. The Pelicans' center finished the first half with 29 points and a perfect 7-of-7 from beyond the arc. He finished the game with a career-high 39 points, seven threes, and seven offensive rebounds. He did most of his damage in the first half, so Brandon Ingram took over and finished the game with 27 points on 12-of-18 shooting.

The Clippers are trying to work through multiple key players in and out of the lineup, limited practice time, and few days off to actually rest. They played an afternoon game the day after Thanksgiving, and are already in the middle of their second set of five games in seven nights. LA isn't the only one going through this, but they sure are struggling to find their way out of it so far.

“Marcus hasn't played a lot this year, then, we have some new guys that we're sprinkling in as well, and on top of all of that, we haven't had much practice time,” Paul George said when asked if he's surprised by the offense's issues given the injuries and schedule. “It's just a lot of that where we're just not on the same page, whether we have good intentions, we're trying to think the same way but we just don't — we haven't had enough time to kinda practice and have those turnovers at practices. We're having some turnovers in games where we're just not on the same page, so that's just really what it comes down to.”

Without Kawhi Leonard, the Clippers have been much more reliant on Paul George to do everything night-in and night-out. Reggie Jackson's number has been called often, and the same can be said for Eric Bledsoe. Marcus Morris missed a whole month. Nicolas Batum is nearing 10 days away from the team due to health and safety protocols.

There have been a number of concerning things to point to a quarter of the way through the season. The Clippers already have more games with 20 or more turnovers this season (five) than they did all of last season (four). Their offense routinely struggles to score 100 points, and beyond that, they have far too many scoring droughts over the course of games.

“It’s every team that’s going to crash against us,” George added off the offensive glass struggles. “Valanciunas took two guys to try to block him out, but then there’s another three guys that are still crashing. That’s obviously our kryptonite, you know. Every team goes towards that, sending guys to the glass and they just think that they can do that and there’s no penalty to it because we haven’t been a great transition team once we get rebounds. I mean, we’re going to see this every night where teams are just going to send guys to the glass.”

Opponents also feast on the offensive glass when playing the Clippers, grabbing over 11 offensive rebounds per game, the fourth highest amount in the league. That's also led to 13.8 second-chance points per game for Clippers' opponents, seventh highest in the NBA.

Despite the turnovers and the scoring struggles, the Clippers defense had been keeping them in games all season long. The overdue bad defensive game came, and it came against one of the younger, higher-paced teams in the league.

“We just couldn’t stop them tonight,” Tyronn Lue said. “We were due for a bad defensive game. But Valanciunas made seven three-pointers. They got everything they wanted: 68 points in the paint, shot 40 percent from 3. 22 fast break points. So we just couldn’t stop it.

“We played big, they got offensive rebounds, We played small, they got offensive rebounds. We talked about it coming into the game. Just Valanciunas on the glass, Jonas crashing. So we had to be better with that. But, I mean, we just all around, just defensively, we couldn’t get stops. I thought their pace — they were fast for us. They really stuck with pace, and we just couldn’t keep up. Ingram, when Valanciunas cooled off, Ingram got going. So they just had it clicking tonight. Like I said, they played good, they’re playing well. And we just couldn’t get any stops.”

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The Clippers have the fifth seed in what's been a very average Western Conference so far. George agrees is no time to worry or get into panic-mode.

“It's not a time to panic,” Paul George admitted. It's not the time to panic. We know we're not playing well, but like I said, it's a lot of — all of it is kind of self inflicted with our turnovers, starting with me, so we clean that up, we give ourselves a chance.”

Kawhi Leonard's not coming back anytime soon to save these Clippers. They're going to have to figure it out on their own, and they might as well find it while they're playing games at home.

The Clippers played 12 of their 16 November games at home. They'll play seven of their 15 December games on the road. In January and February, the Clippers play a combined 18 of their 27 games on the road.

As has been said numerous times this season, the Kawhi Leonard-less Clippers don't get any breaks as they continue to barrel through the schedule. Up next is the a visit from the Sacramento Kings to Staples Center on Wednesday night. The Kings just impressively defeated the Los Angeles Lakers in triple-overtime, but will be on the back-end of a back-to-back when they take on the Clippers Wednesday.