Three weeks after besting the LA Clippers on Christmas night, the Lakers found that they couldn’t carry that success into their first meeting of 2017.
Instead, they never led against that had previously beaten them 11 times in a row, as their across-the-hall neighbors captured a 113-97 win.
Chris Paul — who missed the earlier meeting with the Lakers — engineered a strong offensive performance on his team’s home floor, finishing the afternoon with 20 points and 13 assists.
DeAndre Jordan was the primary benefactor, racking up a ridiculous 24 points and 21 rebounds while hitting 12-of-13 attempts and cleaning up his only miss for a put-back bucket.
The Lakers (15-29) only sent Jordan — a notoriously poor foul shooter — to the free throw line once (on an and-1 opportunity), which went against the team’s game plan.
“We gave him everything he wanted,” Julius Randle said. “He didn’t score outside the paint. We let him, literally all (day), catch lobs, offensive rebounds, dunks — all that stuff.”
The Clippers (28-14) — who have played arguably the best defense in the NBA since the start of the new year — jumped on the purple and gold from the beginning, holding them to 7-of-22 shooting in the first quarter.
Midway through, they scored 11 unanswered points from their guards to take a 21-8 lead over the Lakers.
Paul, Jordan and co. continued to hammer away in the first half, heading to intermission with a 58-39 lead.
“I have come to expect more of our guys,” head coach Luke Walton said. “I thought the way we started was just sloppy. We keep trying to teach that it’s the little details of the game that matter and carry over.
“We weren’t setting hard screens. We weren’t rolling hard and the Clippers, luckily for us, were missing shots early. That’s a really good team over there, so they were obviously going to take advantage of those mistakes.”
The Lakers began the third quarter with a 10-2 run to trim their deficit to 11, but they would never get closer despite a nice frame from Brandon Ingram, who scored 11 of his 14 points in this period.
Along with Jordan Clarkson’s 21 points, the second-overall pick was one of the few silver linings for the Lakers as he also notched five rebounds and five assists.
The rest of the offense couldn’t find much of a groove, as D’Angelo Russell and Lou Williams — who started in place of a resting Luol Deng — combined to shoot 5-of-19 from the field, while the Lakers went 15-of-27 at the foul line as a team.
“It comes with the process of not playing the right way,” Nick Young said of the Lakers’ free throw woes. “The basketball gods tend to do things like this until we figure it out.”
Notes
Ivica Zubac hit his only shot in three minutes played. He will also suit up for the Los Angeles D-Fenders Saturday night, joining Jordan Farmar and Coby Karl as the third Laker to ever play in the NBA and D-League in the same game. … The Clippers shot 52.2 percent from the field with only eight turnovers and moved to 6-0 in 2017. … The matinee started at 12:30 p.m. PT. … A crowd of 19,060 sold out Staples Center.