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Lakers News: Lowlights Of Clippers' Very Predictable Victory Over Lakers, 114-101

LeBron James leaves with an injury as L.A. falls to 2-9 on the season.

Alex Kirschenbaum

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Remember how, a few hours before his Los Angeles Lakers lost 114-103 to the Los Angeles Clippers at Crypto.com Arena, LeBron James vowed he was going to play through his sore foot, having been advised to rest it?

It turns out that may not have been the best call. But hey, he'll surely try to rest it now, right?

What's that?

He wants to play Friday in Sacramento after having to leave the game?

There's a pretty simple explanation as to why LBJ wants to do this. He thinks L.A. can actually beat the 4-6 Kings on Friday, and, let's face it, they do kind of need a win.

Los Angeles lost their fourth straight game by double digits, falling to an absolutely brutal 2-9 record on the young season. Their Crypto.com Arena neighbors, the Clippers, saw their season record improve to 7-5 with their win tonight.

Among the Lakers' regular rotation (thus far this year), only starting shooting guard Lonnie Walker IV was sidelined. Walker has been a surprisingly important player for L.A., and certainly the lack of his scoring punch was felt to an extent, but that's not really much of an excuse for what happened in this game's first quarter.

The Clippers got off to a quick start, concluding the frame up 38-21. The Lakers shot just 8-of-22 from the floor (36.4%). On the other side of the equation, the Clippers (who were missing Kawhi Leonard, by the way) connected on 60.9% of their field goals (on 14-of-23 shooting), including 50% of their triples (on 6-of-12 shooting from deep). They coughed up just three turnovers in the frame. All-Star forward Paul George led the way with 15 points of his own, tying his season-best first quarter output.

The Lakers flipped the script in the second quarter, outscoring the Clippers 31-16. The highlight? Lakers reserve point guard Russell Westbrook's alley-oop to starting center Anthony Davis:

Riding this momentum, the Lakers would find themselves heading into the half down just two points to the Clippers, 54-52.

Unfortunately, the Lakers' luck would run out in the second half. The Clippers would pull away a bit for a 33-23 third frame. The Clips would go on to lead by double digits for much of the fourth frame. 

Also, it turned out that, while Davis could capably catch a Westbrook dish, the reverse sadly was not the case:

Look how unconnected these two are, and how clearly disheartened and lifeless they appear while utterly failing to execute a pretty simple inbounds pass.

What had been a team that seemed guardedly optimistic it would improve, now seems to be a club that's acutely aware it's terrible. This is why Rob Pelinka waiting to pull the trigger on a Russell Westbrook trade until later in the season was always a risky plan. The Lakers knew they had a loaded schedule, and surely must have been aware that Westbrook was immensely overpaid relative to his currently ability.

Worse than that hilariously sloppy inbounds pass was this moment for Lakers fans, midway through the fourth quarter, when LeBron James landed awkwardly on his sore left foot and appeared to aggravate the injury.

He was grabbing his groin before eventually demanding to be taken out. He would depart the game for the locker room midway through the contest's fourth period, finishing with 30 points and an uncertain health future. In postgame comments, Lakers head coach Darvin Ham suggested that James was dealing with "leg discomfort," per Marc Stein.

Stein adds that James himself indicated afterwards that the discomfort did extend to his groin, but felt that it was "not as bad" as the groin injury he incurred during an ill-fated Christmas Day 2018 game against the Golden State Warriors that kept him out for months and ultimately tanked his first season with the team.

Davis turned in a solid statistical game, shooting 9-of-16 from the floor for 21 points, grabbing nine rebounds, passing for three assists, and blocking one shot. Both James and Davis are still pretty high-level basketball players, unfortunately they are surrounded with some of their .

Westbrook finally reverted to the terrible two-way play that got him demoted to a bench role in the first place. He finished with 14 points on 6-of-15 shooting, nine assists (against four turnovers), four rebounds, and two steals. He posted a -12 plus-minus, second-worst on the team behind the -14 of Kendrick Nunn. The 6'2" reserve guard turned in his second 0-point night across his past three games.

Seven Clippers scored in double figures, led by George's 29 points on 10-of-17 shooting. PG-13 has taken the reigns as the club's de facto leader with Leonard's health completely up in the air once again, and he was able to get more or less whatever he wanted tonight while being mostly guarded by former Clippers teammate Patrick Beverley, who is seven inches shorter and 40 pounds lighter. You can probably guess how it went.

Here, George handily shook off Beverley via an Ivica Zubac screen, after which, with Beverley scrambling behind him, the Clippers forward had plenty of time to pass the rock off to Markieff Morris for a trey:

It was pretty darn wild to see point guards like Beverley and... Russell Westbrook tring (and failing) to contain Paul George, when just a few teams ago (i.e. as an All-Defensive Teamer on the Miami Heat), LeBron James loved this assignment. On the other, George proved to be something of a matchup nightmare for Westbrook too, as you'll see below:

At this point, even the enthusiastic effort of the Lakers' earlier losses during that 0-5 run is gone. This team is now on a fresh four-game winning streak, and has no prayer of beating the Sacramento Kings if LeBron James really does need to sit.

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Alex Kirschenbaum
ALEX KIRSCHENBAUM

Basketball is Alex's favorite sport, he likes the way they dribble up and down the court.

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