Only two NBA markets are split between two teams, and unsurprisingly, they’re the two largest cities in the United States by population: New York and Los Angeles. Naturally, the NBA’s Rivals Week wouldn’t be complete without cross-town matchups. The Knicks and the Nets went yesterday, and it wasn’t much of a competition: the Manhattan team, which had been in desperate need of a get-right game, trounced the Nets by 54, the largest margin of victory in Knicks franchise history.
Tonight will be Los Angeles’ turn, as the Clippers will host the Lakers at the Intuit Dome at 10 p.m. ET. The teams have split their previous matchups this season, with the Lakers triumphing, 135-118, on November 25 and the Clippers getting their revenge on December 20 with a 103-88 victory, the first win in one of the most impressive turnarounds in the NBA this season. The teams are set to face off one more time on February 20.
Both of the Lakers’ injured players — Austin Reaves (calf) and Adou Thiero (knee) — have been out for a while, which is also the case for the Clippers’ Bradley Beal (hip), Bogdan Bogdanović (hamstring), and Derrick Jones Jr. (knee). In addition, the Clippers might be without Kawhi Leonard for a fourth straight game as he deals with a knee contusion.
This game is about as close to a toss-up as it gets: on DraftKings Sportsbook, the Clippers are -112 on the Moneyline and the Lakers -108, with the point total set to 223.5. Below, I’ll break down the Battle of LA and offer my prediction.
Los Angeles Lakers at LA Clippers preview, prediction
The Lakers opened up Rivals Week with arguably their best win of the season so far, mounting a 14-point second-half comeback to slow down Jamal Murray and oust the Denver Nuggets, who had been a thorn in their side over the last several seasons. As is typical, Luka Dončić led the way with a 38-point, 13-rebound, 10-assist triple-double, and LeBron James added 19 points, eight boards, and nine assists. The Lakers have stagnated after a hot start to the season, as they’re just 11-12 since the start of December, but given the circumstances, the last two wins have been fairly encouraging.
Nothing about the Clippers’ turnaround, meanwhile, feels fake. They fell to 6-21 after losing to the Oklahoma City Thunder on December 18, and Tyronn Lue told reporters that he hoped the team could go 35-20 for the rest of the season to finish 41-41. They’re more than on pace to do that: since his comments, the Clippers are 13-3 and have risen from the cellar of the West to the Play-In Tournament picture. The Clippers might not be genuine championship contenders this season, but with Leonard playing at an MVP level — in the 24 games before his most recent injury, he averaged 29.2 points and 2.2 steals per game on 50-40-94 shooting splits — they have reason to believe that they can at least win a playoff series.
Lakers at Clippers pick, best bet
This game could look very different depending on whether or not Leonard plays. With Board Man on the court this season, the Clippers have been 11.2 points per 100 possessions better, the eighth-best on-off split among qualified players. The Clippers’ offense drops from the equivalent of the league’s third-best to the equivalent of its ninth-worst, and their defense falls from the equivalent of its 10th-worst to the equivalent of its third-worst. Given Leonard’s lengthy injury history and the Clippers’ traditionally conservative nature surrounding him, he’s certainly not a guarantee to play, but his injury isn’t believed to be serious and the Lakers have typically faced among the healthiest opponents in the league, a sign of their marquee status.
With or without Leonard, driving will be key for the Clippers. Since the Lakers lost Reaves to his back-to-back calf strains on December 10 (he’s played just two games since), they’ve allowed a league-average number of shots at the rim and a 71.9% conversion rate, the fourth-worst mark in the league. That’s not something that the Clippers have done well — for the season, they rank ninth-to-last in shot attempts at the rim and seventh-to-last in points in the paint — but in recent games, that’s started to turn around. With Harden’s shot not falling, he’s committed to driving more, and the Clippers actually lead the league in points in the paint across the last three games. That trend should continue with Leonard healthy; he ranks second on the team in points in the paint. Offensively, the Lakers are similar, as they don’t get downhill very often but finish at some of the highest rates from both the restricted area and from floater range. They’ll need to be accurate tonight, given that the Clippers have been an above-average rim-protecting team.
The Lakers should be able to make up for some of their disadvantage in the paint by controlling the glass, since they rank 11th in total rebounding percentage for the season and the Clippers lag behind in just 23rd. The Lakers have also scored more second-chance points than the Clippers and allowed fewer, and while the Clippers’ chances could improve with Leonard potentially back — their rebounding percentage jumps by 1.6 percentage points with him on the floor — their 49.5% rebounding percentage with him on the court still lags behind the Lakers’ 50.4% mark overall. Both teams are fairly turnover-prone, but the Lakers have been slightly better in transition on both sides of the ball and have a slightly better free-throw margin.
The Lakers are also slightly more due to benefit from any normalization in shooting luck. Both teams have had gotten pretty lucky over the last month, allowing bottom-10 opponent marks on wide-open three-pointers, but the Lakers have allowed nearly two fewer uncontested attempts per game than the Clippers have. Plus, while neither team has generated many wide-open threes offensively, the Clippers have hit them at a higher rate than the Lakers have. In part, that’s a function of the Clippers’ shooters genuinely being better — Leonard, for instance, ranks 16th in three-point percentage above expectation, while the best Laker, Dončić, ranks 40th — but Leonard won’t continue to hit 55.6% of his uncontested triples and John Collins won’t continue to hit 63.6% of his. As due as Harden (20.0%) is for some improvement, so is Rui Hachimura (26.3%).
Home court advantage could mean something — the net swing is 11.3 points per 100 possessions in the Clippers’ favor — but Lakers-Clippers games in Los Angeles, even at the Intuit Dome, have typically been split relatively evenly, so it should function as a neutral-court game, which should slightly favor the Lakers. Plus, Dončić always seems to love this matchup: his career scoring average against the Clippers (31.9) is his highest against any opponent he’s faced at least 10 times. A heroic Dončić effort, combined with a likely Leonard minutes restriction, should be just enough to overcome the Lakers’ disadvantage in the paint.
