{"id":362454,"date":"2025-12-21T11:51:10","date_gmt":"2025-12-21T11:51:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/362454\/"},"modified":"2025-12-21T11:51:10","modified_gmt":"2025-12-21T11:51:10","slug":"clippers-103-88-lakers-21-dec-2025-game-recap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/362454\/","title":{"rendered":"Clippers 103-88 Lakers (21 Dec, 2025) Game Recap"},"content":{"rendered":"

INGLEWOOD, Calif. — \u2014 Kawhi Leonard<\/a> scored a season-high 32 points and the slumping Los Angeles Clippers rode their 3-point shooting to a 103-88 victory over LeBron James<\/a> and the short-handed Los Angeles Lakers<\/a> on Saturday night, snapping a five-game skid.<\/p>\n

Luka Doncic<\/a>, the NBA’s scoring leader, didn’t return for the Lakers after halftime because of a lower leg contusion. He had 12 points and five rebounds in 19 minutes after missing his first six shots. Doncic was coming off a triple-double of 45 points, 11 rebounds and 14 assists at Utah on Thursday.<\/p>\n

James, who turns 41 on Dec. 30, led the Lakers with a season-high 36 points. <\/p>\n

James Harden<\/a> had 21 points and 10 assists for the Clippers. John Collins<\/a> added 17 points and 12 rebounds.<\/p>\n

The Clippers were 16 of 43 from 3-point range, with Leonard tying his season high with four, Harden making four and Brook Lopez<\/a> hitting three off the bench. The Lakers missed 32 3-pointers, with James going 3 of 7, Doncic 1 of 6 and Marcus Smart<\/a> missing all of his nine attempts.<\/p>\n

The Clippers had lost 12 of their last 15 to fall to the bottom of the Western Conference. But they led the entire game and held off a Lakers spurt that cut their lead to seven to open the fourth.<\/p>\n

The Lakers got that close with the help of a six-point possession. Kobe Sanders<\/a> received a flagrant-1 foul on Smart’s 3-point attempt. Smart made all three free throws and the Lakers got possession. James scored, got fouled and made the free throw, leaving them trailing 80-73.<\/p>\n

The Clippers answered with back-to-back 3-pointers by Collins and Harden to go with Leonard’s dunk off James’ turnover. The Lakers then ran off six in a row to close to 88-79.<\/p>\n

From there, the Clippers closed out just their seventh win of the season. <\/p>\n

The Clippers lost Ivica Zubac<\/a> to a left ankle injury after he scored five points while playing most of the first quarter.<\/p>\n

Rui Hachimura<\/a> missed his first start of the season for the Lakers with a sore groin. He\u2019s expected to be out 3-5 days. The team hopes to get Deandre Ayton<\/a> (left elbow) and Austin Reaves<\/a> (left calf) back soon.<\/p>\n

Up next <\/p>\n

Lakers: At Phoenix on Tuesday to end an eight-game trip.<\/p>\n

Clippers: Host former MVP Kevin Durant<\/a> and Houston on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

——<\/p>\n

AP NBA: https:\/\/apnews.com\/NBA<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"INGLEWOOD, Calif. — \u2014 Kawhi Leonard scored a season-high 32 points and the slumping Los Angeles Clippers rode…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":362455,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[64,63,590,85],"class_list":["post-362454","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/362454","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=362454"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/362454\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/362455"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=362454"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=362454"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=362454"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}