Clippers lose sixth in a row, 114-88 at Oklahoma City

Doc Rivers implored his group to stay the course even while the Clippers were withering away under the Oklahoma City Thunder assault Saturday night.

The Clippers coach encouraged his guys to not give in to the dire circumstances that had a firm grip on them. Rivers pleaded with his team, clapped when the Clippers did the smallest thing correct and tried to stay positive through it all.

Even when it was clear the Clippers were well on their way to a back-to-back beatdown, Rivers never stopped coaching his team during an eventual 114-88 defeat to the Thunder at Chesapeake Energy Arena.

It didn’t matter to Rivers that Thunder All-Star guard Russell Westbrook was in the process of getting his NBA-leading 16th triple-double with 17 points, 14 assists and 12 rebounds in only 28 minutes.

It didn’t matter to Rivers that the Clippers faced their largest deficit of the season, going down by 35 points, or that the 26-points loss was their worst of the season, which came on the heels of a 24-point loss to the Houston Rockets Friday night.

“I’m not coaching for tomorrow. I’m coaching for the end of the year,” Rivers said. “And that’s why I kept calling timeouts, kept making us run stuff, forcing us to run offense. You can lose your spirit in this and we haven’t done that. But you can.

“So my job right now is to get us through this. This is a heavy hit for us. We’re losing games. We’re dropping places in the standing. It’s all good. It really is.”

Rivers’ team ended 2016 on a six-game losing streak.

The Clippers were playing their fifth game of the week, their second set of back-to-back games and their seventh game in 10 days.

They started their fifth different starting lineup in the last five games.

Chris Paul sat out his second straight game with a strained left hamstring. DeAndre Jordan limped up and down the court constantly after hurting his left hip and later his left ankle. J.J. Redick played with a sore left hamstring that’s not 100% yet. Wesley Johnson gave what he could with a sprained left ankle.

And, of course, Blake Griffin is out after having right knee surgery.

“At the end of the day, we have to get through this,” Rivers said. “We have to learn something, learn something about each other, too.

“That’s what the coaches see. You can learn a lot about your team when you’re struggling. It’s hard to learn when you’re winning.”

The Clippers, who had the best record in the NBA at 14-2, dropped from the fourth seed in the Western Conference when the game started to the seventh seed behind No. 4 Utah, No. 5 Oklahoma City and No. 6 Memphis, even though they have the same 22-14 record as the Grizzlies.

“Doc’s our leader,” said Jamal Crawford, who didn’t score. “So we follow his lead.

“Obviously, this isn’t what we want to be going through. We just have to keep fighting, keep fighting until it turns.”

broderick.turner@latimes.com

Twitter: @BA_Turner