It’s an old rivalry renewed tonight in LA as the Lakers and Clippers battle for the 4th and final time this regular season. Surprisingly the Lakers have had the edge so far with 2 wins in the 3 meetings. I say surprisingly because the Clippers have dominated this match-up over the past few seasons winning 8 of the last 10 meetings and 7 straight as the home team. The Lakers will have a mountain to climb here, they’ll most likely be without their best (or 2nd best, depending who you ask) player Anthony Davis who is battling an upper respiratory illness. That would be a massive blow to their ambitions, when AD doesn’t play the Lakers are only 1-3 SU this season. For what it’s worth, the only win came on the road at TD Garden against the Boston Celtics about a month ago.
The Clippers have been up and down after the break, exchanging wins and losses in the 3 games played so far. Their latest game was a home defeat to the Sacramento Kings, in a game in which they went into as 5.5 point favorites. Paul George was absent in the loss, according to the latest reports he will skip this game as well with a knee issue. The last thing the Clippers want now is one of their star players going down after going almost 60 games without any serious setbacks. At 20-7 SU they’re one of the better home teams in the league, so despite George’s absence they’re still the favorite here. One thing they’ll need to fix though is their three-point shooting – over the last 3 games they’ve made just 32 of them which is an average of under 11 per game.
