by Thomas Quaynor for Wannamakeabet.com
Bitter crosstown rivals square off tonight as the Los Angeles Lakers (26-16) make the short trip to face the Los Angeles Clippers (19-24) tonight at Intuit Dome on Prime Video. This will be the third of four regular season meetings between the Lakers and Clippers. The teams split the first two contests with each team winning by double-digits at home. They’ll meet again for a final time on Feb. 20 at Crypto.com Arena. The Lakers have won four of the last five against the Clippers.
The Lakers are a 1.5-point favorite and the total is 224.5.
WHAT BOTH TEAMS DID IN THEIR PREVIOUS GAME
The Lakers picked up a 115-107 win at Denver on Tuesday night. The Lakers rallied from a 16-point (75-59) deficit early in the third quarter to win. Luka Doncic amassed a triple-double with 38 points (12-21 FG, 3-9 3Pt, 11-12 FT), 13 rebounds and 10 assists over 36 minutes to lead the Lakers. LeBron James added 19 points (8-15 FG, 1-1 3Pt, 2-6 FT), 9 rebounds and 8 assists across 34 minutes.
Tonight’s contest is the second leg of an eight-game road trip for the Lakers. They had dropped three in a row on the road before defeating Denver on Tuesday.
The Clippers suffered a 138-110 loss at Chicago on Tuesday night. The Bulls tied a franchise-record by knocking down 25 three-pointers in the win. The Clippers led 30-25 after one quarter, but were outscored 45-19 in the second quarter and were never competitive afterwards. The loss snapped the Clippers’ six-game winning streak.
James Harden scored a team-high 24 points (9-25 FG, 3-9 3Pt, 3-3 FT) and added 6 rebounds and 5 assists in 31 minutes for the Clippers. John Collins poured in 23 points (9-12 FG, 5-6 3Pt) in 24 minutes. Clippers star forward Kawhi Leonard missed the past three games due to a knee contusion. He is questionable for tonight’s contest against the Lakers.
GAME STORYLINES: LAKERS
In 2020, the All-NBA duo of LeBron James and Anthony Davis led the Los Angeles Lakers to the COVID-interrupted NBA championship in their first year playing together. It seemed like a forgone conclusion that James and Davis would lead the Lakers to several more titles, but injuries to James and Davis, along with poor team chemistry and lackluster defensive efforts led to the Lakers coming up painfully short of winning another title over the next 4 seasons.
The lack of postseason success from 2021-2024 prompted the Lakers to make a stunning move on February 2, 2025. The Lakers traded Anthony Davis to the Dallas Mavericks in exchange for superstar Luka Doncic. The move shocked the sports and non-sports world because it was assumed that the then-25-year-old Doncic would remain a Maverick for life due to his extraordinary play. Doncic had just led Dallas to the 2024 NBA Finals and was 6 years younger than the injury-plagued Davis.
With LeBron James and Luka Doncic wearing the purple and gold, many assumed that the pair would bring instantaneous success for the Lakers. But in their nearly one calendar year of playing together, the individual brilliance of James and Doncic has yet to translate to a lot of team success for the Lakers. The 2025 season ended with an embarrassing first round upset loss to the sixth-seeded Minnesota Timberwolves. The addition of Doncic did not spare the Lakers of another postseason flameout.
The Lakers enter tonight’s contest with a respectable 26-16 record, but 15 of their 16 losses have been by double digits. Los Angeles’s penchant of getting blown out in losses raises a lot of concerns going forward because the same issues — poor defense, lack of rebounding, poor three-point shooting — that plagued the team in the previous five seasons still remain.
Despite the somewhat uneven season as a team, superstar Luka Doncic continues to compile stellar numbers in his first full campaign with the Lakers. The 26-year-old, Serbian superstar is averaging a league-leading 33.5 points, 8.7 assists, 7.7 rebounds, 1.6 steals and 3.4 steals on 46.7 percent shooting from the floor across 34 games. Doncic was voted in as a starter for the All-Star game. It marks his sixth All-Star appearance and fifth as a starter.
The trio of emerging superstar Austin Reaves (26.6 pts, 6.3 asts, 5.2 rebs, 1 stl, 2.7 threes, 50.7% from 2 in 23 gms), the ageless LeBron James (22.5 pts, 7 asts, 6 rebs, 1 stl, 51% from 2 in 25 gms) and center Deandre Ayton (13.9 pts, 8.8 rebs, 1 blk, 68.5% from 2 in 37 gms) have all been terrific alongside Luka Doncic for the Lakers.
The 27-year-old Austin Reaves was registering a career-year before going down with a left calf strain on Christmas (Dec. 25). Reaves has missed 13 straight games but should be returning soon. LeBron James missed the first 14 games of the season with sciatica (nerve damage) on the right side of his body. The Lakers have a slight chance to join the Western conference elites — Oklahoma City, San Antonio and a healthy Denver Nuggets squad — if LeBron and Reaves are fully healthy and can mesh together on the court.
GAME STORYLINES: CLIPPERS
Much like tonight’s opponent (the Lakers), the Los Angeles Clippers also scrapped their All-NBA duo of Kawhi Leonard and Paul George experiment after five seasons (2020-2024) of futility. The Clippers signed both superstars as free agents in the summer of 2019, but injuries — especially to Kawhi Leonard — for both players negated any chance of postseason success. Los Angeles allowed Paul George to walk as a free agent in the summer of 2024.
The Clippers remained pretty formidable last season without Paul George as veteran superstar James Harden (22.8 ppg last year) and potent scorer Norman Powell (21.8 ppg last year) carried the team while Kawhi Leonard missed the first 34 games of the year. Leonard returned in January 2025 and the Clippers quickly gelled into what looked to be a championship contender. The Clippers finished 50-32 last year but their season ended prematurely in the first round when they lost a hard-fought seven game series to the fourth-seeded Denver Nuggets.
In the offseason, the Clippers traded Norman Powell to the Miami Heat in a three-way trade that brought forward John Collins to the Clippers. They also signed oft-injured scoring guard Bradley Beal and veteran point guard Chris Paul as free agents. Two of these moves backfired spectacularly as Beal suffered a season-ending hip injury in November after averaging only 8 ppg in 6 games. The Clippers then released Chris Paul on Dec. 2 after averaging just 2.9 points and 3.3 assists in 16 games.
An ankle/foot sprain for Kawhi Leonard in the sixth game of the season — a 120-119 loss at Miami on Nov. 3 — along with the lack of production/injuries from veterans Bradley Beal and Chris Paul led to a terrible start for the Clippers. The Clippers lost 9 of 10 games without Kawhi Leonard which dropped their record to 4-11 on Nov. 20. The return of Leonard did not help much as Los Angeles would lose 10 of 11 from Nov. 23 through Dec. 18 to fall to 6-21 on Dec. 20.
At 6-21 on Dec. 20, the Los Angeles Clippers season looked to be heading nowhere. But they’ve caught fire by winning 13 of 16 games since the 6-21 start and are now 19-24 heading into tonight’s game. The stellar play of veteran stars Kawhi Leonard and James Harden has been the catalyst for the Clippers’ resurgence. The Clippers still have some work to do to secure a playoff spot in the ultra-competitive Western Conference, but if Harden and Leonard can sustain their high level of play, they are more than capable of finishing the year above .500.
The aforementioned veteran superstar duo of Kawhi Leonard (career-high 28.2 pts, 6.3 rebs, 3.5 asts, 2.2 stls, 2.9 threes, 49.7% from 2, 39% from 3 in 30 gms) and James Harden (26 pts, 8 asts, 4.8 rebs, 1.3 stls, 3.1 threes in 40 stls) are defying father time and have carried the Clippers to a blistering 13-3 record over the last month.
The 34-year-old, two-time NBA Finals MVP Kawhi Leonard is having perhaps his best season in year 15. The 36-year-old, 11-time All-Star James Harden is registering his highest points per game average since the 2019-20 season (34.3 ppg) when he was on the Houston Rockets. It will be interesting to see whether both veterans can keep up their torrid pace.
THE PICK: CLIPPERS (+1.5)
With Kawhi Leonard set to make his return tonight, I’m expecting a dominant performance from the two-time NBA Finals MVP and a bounce-back effort from the Clippers after Tuesday night’s blowout loss at Chicago. Take the Point(s) and the Clippers here.