{"id":327115,"date":"2025-12-03T01:38:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-03T01:38:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/327115\/"},"modified":"2025-12-03T01:38:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-03T01:38:08","slug":"clippers-and-lakers-going-in-completely-opposite-direction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/327115\/","title":{"rendered":"Clippers and Lakers Going in Completely Opposite Direction"},"content":{"rendered":"

Editor\u2019s note: This first appeared on the Open Floor newsletter, a free, twice weekly newsletter from Sports Illustrated\u2019s Chris Mannix. Subscribe now.<\/a><\/p>\n

SIGN UP NOW. SI NBA Newsletter. Get SI’s FREE NBA Newsletter. dark<\/p>\n

Greetings from Los Angeles, where I took advantage of a Dallas Mavericks two-game trip to dive into the state of Mavs in the post\u2013Nico Harrison era<\/a>. Dallas has looked pretty good since Anthony Davis returned to the lineup last week<\/a>. Cooper Flagg continues to look like the star most expected him to be, while the Mavericks could be a point guard away from turning things around. And it just so happens they have a pretty good one working his way back.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Pod alert: Rachel Nichols returns for a deep dive on the Clippers, who are struggling mightily right now<\/a>. Last weekend was a disastrous one for L.A., with back-to-back losses to injury-ravaged Memphis and Dallas. On Monday the Clips were run off the floor in Miami, dropping them to 5\u201316 on the season. Yikes.\u00a0<\/p>\n

We also discussed how seriously we should take the Lakers as title contenders, what\u2019s behind this Hawks surge without Trae Young and why Cleveland has looked so average to start the season. Subscribe here<\/a>, here<\/a> and here<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

All right, a few free throws \u2026\u00a0<\/p>\n

The numbers were ugly. The Heat shot 53% from the floor. They connected on 52.2% of their threes. James Harden played 20 minutes for the Clippers and finished a ghastly -39. The loss was the Clippers\u2019 fifth straight and eighth in the last nine games. Since Halloween, L.A. has won twice. \u201cEverybody wants to try to get a win,\u201d Leonard said. \u201cWe\u2019re not finding one at the moment.\u201d<\/p>\n

I covered the Clippers\u2019 issues after the loss to Dallas on Saturday.<\/a> Against Miami, it was more of the same. Defensively, this team has collapsed. Miami\u2019s three-point shooting was ridiculous, but many of them were open looks. L.A.\u2019s 13 turnovers aren\u2019t terrible, but they continue to be unable to stop teams from turning them into points. After a 9\u20130 Heat run to start the third quarter, Ty Lue yanked his entire starting lineup.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It\u2019s unclear how the Clippers get out of this. Getting Bogdan Bogdanovi\u0107 and Derrick Jones Jr. back from injury will help, but the Clippers weren\u2019t winning when they were healthy. A coaching change won\u2019t help, and there is no indication that owner Steve Ballmer is considering it. L.A. can\u2019t dump its stars and tank because its first-round pick is earmarked for Oklahoma City. The Clips were a trendy pick to make a deep playoff run before the season. Right now it\u2019s hard to see how they avoid the lottery.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It\u2019s more than on-court stuff, though. Brooks\u2019s swagger is infectious. He had it in Memphis, he brought it to Houston and now he has a rebuilding Suns team believing it can win. His act isn\u2019t for everyone\u2014asked about going up against LeBron James on Monday, Brooks said, \u201cHe likes people who bow down. I don\u2019t bow down\u201d\u2014but you simply can\u2019t argue with the results.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Can L.A. play enough defense to compete in the West? The Lakers aren\u2019t bad defensively. They are middle of the pack in defensive categories like rating, opponent points in the paint, points scored. But they are bottom third in opponent field goal percentage and three-point percentage, per NBA.com. Against Phoenix, they were gashed for 56 points in the paint.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Will the Lakers make a move before the trade deadline? There could be some frontcourt players available. Daniel Gafford, whom Don\u010di\u0107 pushed for the Mavs to trade for in 2024, could hit the market. In Portland, Robert Williams III is expendable. Some back line reinforcements could make all the difference.\u00a0<\/p>\n

More NBA from Sports Illustrated<\/p>\n

Listen to SI\u2019s NBA podcast, Open Floor, below or on Apple<\/a> and Spotify<\/a>. Watch the show on SI\u2019s YouTube channel<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Editor\u2019s note: This first appeared on the Open Floor newsletter, a free, twice weekly newsletter from Sports Illustrated\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":327116,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[355,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-327115","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-nba","9":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327115","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=327115"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327115\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/327116"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=327115"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=327115"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=327115"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}