After breaking a three-game skid against Toronto, the L.A. Clippers (44-22) look to sweep the season series against the LeBron-less Los Angeles Lakers (37-28) in the national spotlight Thursday night. Read on for our full Clippers vs. Lakers game preview.
Clippers vs. Lakers Game Information
Where: Staples Center, Los Angeles, California
When: 7 p.m. PT
How to Watch: TNT, AM 570 L.A. Sports, 1330 AM Tu Liga
Projected Starting Lineups:
L.A. Clippers: Reggie Jackson – Paul George – Kawhi Leonard – Marcus Morris Sr. – Ivica Zubac
Los Angeles Lakers: Alex Caruso – Kentavious Caldwell-Pope – Kyle Kuzma – Anthony Davis – Andre Drummond
Injury Report:
L.A. Clippers: Amir Coffey – OUT ( Health and Safety Protocols), Serge Ibaka – OUT (Lower Back Tightness)
Los Angeles Lakers: Kentavious Caldwell-Pope – PROBABLE (Right Ankle Sprain), Anthony Davis – PROBABLE (Right Calf Strain), Jared Dudley – OUT (Right MCL Tear), Marc Gasol – PROBABLE (Left Pinkie Finger Volar Plate Fracture), Talen Horton-Tucker – OUT (Right Calf Strain), LeBron James – OUT (Right Ankle Sprain), Kyle Kuzma – PROBABLE (Left Thumb Sprain), Dennis Schröder – OUT (Health and Safety Protocols)
The Big Picture
With just six games left, the biggest question mark surrounding the Clippers is something that feels all too familiar—will they have had enough time to gel together on the court before the playoffs? While it’s great to see Patrick Beverley and Kawhi Leonard back on the floor, it’s clear that it’s going to take time to reintegrate them into the system as well as ramp them back up to their usual minutes. Serge Ibaka remains without a timetable to return and has missed L.A.’s last 26 games. As Beverley put it bluntly on Tuesday, the Clippers have no other option but to play hard and try to establish their identity on the fly in this final stretch.
Returning to the win column after dropping three straight games to Western Conference foes, the Clippers also find themselves with much out of their control in terms of postseason seeding. Moving up feels unlikely as the west’s Top 2 seeds are firmly out of reach and the No. 3-seeded Denver Nuggets own the two teams’ tiebreaker. However, another question to ask is should the Clippers even want to move up if it means they matchup with the Lakers in the first round? Both teams are pretty much tied at the hip, regardless of the result tonight. A Clipper win would put them in third and keep the Lakers in sixth. A Laker win would boost them up to fifth and keep the Clippers in fourth. According to Paul George on Tuesday, LAC remains motivated to attain its highest seed possible, regardless of where the defending champs finish.
The Antagonist
With eight players listed on their injury report heading into tonight, the bumped and bruised Lakers aim to avoid being swept by the Clippers during the regular season for the first time since the 2015-16 season. Despite LeBron James and Dennis Schröder being out, this game remains a must-win for the sixth-place Lakers, who are on the verge of dropping into the gauntlet play-in tournament. Although the Lakers have lost seven of their last 10, both with and without James in the lineup, they are coming off of a quality win over Denver on Monday night.
Sending the message “we’re back,” both with a dagger block and verbally after the Lakers’ win over the Nuggets, Anthony Davis continues to lead the charge for the purple and gold after missing a large chunk of the season with a calf strain and Achilles tendinosis. Through five contests versus the Clippers as a Laker, Davis has averaged 26.2 points, 7.4 rebounds, a steal and a block per game on 47/21/84 shooting splits. Beyond having Davis dominate, the win conditions for the Lakers become muddied as the team continues to try and reinvent itself in the short term with both of their primary ball handlers out. Alex Caruso continues to take on a much-expanded traditional point guard role, Kyle Kuzma and Kentavious Caldwell-Pope will be expected to shoulder a larger responsibility of the scoring and the minutes logjam at center between Andre Drummond, Marc Gasol and Montrezl Harrell continues to be something that head coach Frank Vogel determines depending on the night.
Clippers vs. Lakers Game Notes
- Klawing Back to Form: Although the Lakers have posted a Top 3 defensive rating since Leonard’s arrival in L.A., the hallway matchup seems to especially bring out the best in him. In his six games against the Lakers as a Clipper, Leonard is averaging 27.5 points, 5.8 rebounds and 4.2 assists on 48/43/91 shooting splits. It would be a welcome sight to see Leonard take over in this matchup as he usually does. In addition to some subdued performances by his loftly standards in his first two contests back, Leonard’s minutes limit has made it tough according to head coach Tyronn Lue, who normally prefers to play him through the entire first quarter of games. With PG filling in for that rotation role in the meantime, the Clippers have had to use lineups they’ve never used before while playing Leonard more with the bench unit.
- Starting at Point Guard…: It was a pleasant surprise to have Beverley back in the mix last time out, but with him still working to get his legs back, Reggie Jackson remained in the Clippers’ starting five. Although this makes plenty of sense for now, it appears the starting spot might actually be up for grabs. Lue said Tuesday that the team is going to try to see who fits with who in different lineups in order to see what works best in terms of who starts at the one.
- Can Zu Get Much Higher?: The Clippers have been extremely fortunate to have an ironman and well-above-replacement-level center in Zubac, who hasn’t missed a game for L.A. this season. Albeit Zu has surely solidified his starting position in the playoffs and has already demonstrated he is as good as anyone in the league in staying vertical with his contests, Lue mentioned he thinks Zublocka needs to block more shots and has made that a point of emphasis to him this year. The Clippers will continue to heavily rely on Zubac’s bigman defense tonight against both ADs, Gasol and Trez.
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