Clippers unable to make any late-season progress

Sustained progress is not something the Clippers have been able to attain.

The steps they take are more arduous, sending the Clippers in all sorts of directions except the right one, and that is concerning for a team unable to build any momentum.

They had seemingly moved the right way Saturday with a victory over the Utah Jazz, a potential playoff foe the Clippers are jockeying with for home-court advantage in the Western Conference.

Then the Clippers took a step backward Sunday, losing to the Sacramento Kings in astonishing fashion, leading to questions about how equipped they are for the task that awaits them — the playoffs.

“This is the time of the year you’d like to be playing your best basketball,” Blake Griffin said Sunday after the Clippers played some of their worst basketball of the season during a four-quarter meltdown. “And even if you’re not getting wins or blowout wins or whatever it is, you want to be playing the right way.”

Since the All-Star break, the Clippers have been wildly inconsistent over 19 games.

This is how things have gone for the Clippers over this period in which they have gone 9-10.

Lose two; win one; lose two; win two; lose one; win two; lose three; win three; lose one; win won; and lose one.

And they lost two of their last three games in exasperating ways.

The Clippers had a three-point lead with 2 minutes 30 seconds left against Dallas on Thursday, but never scored again in that loss.

They turned the ball over three times and missed all three shots.

The Clippers had what looked like an insurmountable 18-point lead with 5:16 left against Sacramento, but scored only three points the rest of the way.

They missed all nine of their field-goal attempts and turned the ball over twice the remainder of the game.

“I actually thought we played the right way in Dallas for some of the game,” Griffin said. “And then [Saturday] we played the right way for most of the game. But you can’t take one step forward, two steps back, two steps forward, one step back. You can’t have those steps back, especially in these types of situations.”

So, again, the Clippers look to get back on track.

“You ain’t got no choice,” Chris Paul said Sunday. “Once the buzzer sounds, you look at the film. I’m sure we’ll talk about it. [Coach] Doc [Rivers] said some stuff after the game. But [we] got to get ready for Washington.”

The Clippers have two days to do that.

They didn’t practice Monday, but players got treatment on their ailments.

They will resume Tuesday for a practice and a film session with the hopes that the Clippers can turn it around – again.

“We’re a little banged up,” Griffin said. “It’ll be nice to have a practice, to be able to get up and down and be able to work on some stuff and hopefully that gets us into a better groove. “

broderick.turner@latimes.com

Twitter: @BA_Turner