After a mini-two game trip to Houston that resulted in back to back wins, the LA Clippers return home against the struggling LA Lakers.
Game Information
Where: Crypto.com Arena, Los Angeles, CA
When: 7 p.m. PST
How to Watch: TNT
Projected Starting Lineups
Clippers: Reggie Jackson – Terance Mann – Nicolas Batum – Marcus Morris Sr. – Ivica Zubac
Lakers: Russell Westbrook – Austin Reaves – Malik Monk – Stanley Johnson – LeBron James
Injury Report
Clippers: Paul George out (right elbow), Kawhi Leonard out (right knee), Norman Powell out (left foot), Jason Preston out (foot), Jay Scrubb out (right foot).
Lakers: LeBron James questionable (left knee), Anthony Davis out (right foot), Avery Bradley questionable (right knee), Talen Horton-Tucker probable (left ankle), Mason Jones (G League Assignment), Kendrick Nunn out (right knee).
The Big Picture
The return to play post-All Star break has been very kind to the Clippers. They’ve gone 3-0 with two games against the Houston Rockets and one against the LA Lakers to finally climb back over .500 at 33-31. What’s been most impressive in a couple of those wins is the Clippers ability to come through in crunch time.
Despite being short-handed, the Clippers showed a ton of mental toughness staying composed to pull off nail-biters. This is a tight-knit group, and as head coach Tyronn Lue mentioned this week, this team has a lot of good energy.
They’re also brimming with confidence. Terance Mann seemed to sum up the current attitude of the team this week when he said people wrote the Clippers off too early with both Kawhi Leonard and Paul George on the sidelines. and that even with both of them injured, he would have expected a better record than .500.
This team believes they can win any game, and when you believe like that, you’ve already won half the battle. If you factor in the injured Norman Powell, who is arguably the team’s third best player, it would seem like the Clippers have no right be as good as they’ve been.
But that’s a testament to the combination of Lue’s coaching prowess and the resiliency of the rest of the squad that first showed itself during last season’s playoff run. Go back a couple of months when George got injured, and there were questions as to how this team would respond and if the playoffs were possibly out of the picture.
Now, it’s really just a formality. This team is going to make the postseason, in the play-in tournament at least, and whether or not their injured stars make an appearance, it’s an accomplishment in itself.
The Antagonist
Walking down the hall at Crypto.com Arena to the locker room of the Clippers next-door neighbors, the Lakers, you’ll find a team in much more dire straits.
The addition of Russell Westbrook was supposed to boost the Lakers championship hopes, but as the end of the regular season draws near, the Lakers missing the playoffs, including the play-in tournament, is a very real possibility. As it stands, the Lakers sit in ninth place in the Western Conference, a mere one and a half games up on the New Orleans Pelicans who just put a beat down on the Lakers in their own building on Sunday night.
The Portland Trail Blazers are only two and a half games back. Catching either the Clippers or the Minnesota Timberwolves seems unrealistic at this point and if they’re not careful, both the Pelicans and Blazers could pass the Lakers and cause them to miss the postseason altogether.
Sure, the Lakers are missing Anthony Davis, but they still have LeBron James and Russell Westbrook. That’s two star players in the lineup compared to the Clippers’ zero. Even though the two teams are close in the standings, they couldn’t be any more farther apart.
It’s not just that the Lakers are losing, it’s that they’re not competitive. They’re playing lazy, disinterested and undisciplined basketball. In their loss to the Pelicans, there was one play that encapsulated their entire season when DeAndre Jordan nonchalantly threw a pass down court only to have it sail several feet over James’ head and into the stands.
With only about a month left in the season, the Lakers are running out of time to figure it out.
