Ayton instead intertwined his middle and ring fingers and held his right hand up toward the bench. The \u2018W\u2019 is all that mattered.<\/p>\n
Entering the final week of NBA Cup group play, the Lakers need just one more W to clinch their spot in the quarterfinals. The winner of Tuesday\u2019s game between the Lakers and Clippers at Crypto.com Arena officially claims West Group B.<\/p>\n
The Lakers and Clippers are 2-0 in group play with two games remaining. The group also includes the Memphis Grizzlies, the Dallas Mavericks and the already eliminated New Orleans Pelicans. The Lakers finish group play with the Dallas Mavericks on Friday in a game that, even if the Lakers clinch the top spot Tuesday, could still matter.<\/p>\n
The three group winners advance to the quarterfinals, and the top second-place team from each conference earns a wild card. The two teams with the best group play record in each conference will host the quarterfinal games. The No. 1 seed goes to the team with the best overall record, and if the records are even, then point differential will be the first tiebreaker for seeding.<\/p>\n
Oklahoma City is also 2-0 halfway through group play and has a league-best plus-63 point differential, putting the Thunder in position to earn the No. 1 seed in the West quarterfinals. <\/p>\n
The Lakers have a plus-19 point differential in group games and are in position to be the second-seeded team in the West, possibly playing against the West Group C winner. <\/p>\n
The third group in the West is one of the most competitive in the league as Portland and Denver entered this week tied with 2-1 records. Portland has the first-priority head-to-head tiebreaker against the Nuggets, but Denver has a plus-26 point differential that positions it well as a potential wild-card team.<\/p>\n
Top-seeded teams will host the quarterfinal games on Dec. 9 and 10. The losing teams in each conference\u2019s quarterfinals will play each other in a regular season game on one of four dates: Dec. 11, 12, 14 or 15. The semifinals are in Las Vegas on Dec. 13, and the final will be on Dec. 16.<\/p>\n
On tap<\/p>\n
Records and stats updated entering Monday\u2019s games<\/p>\n
Nov. 25 vs. Clippers (5-12), 8 p.m., NBA Cup group play<\/b><\/p>\n
Kawhi Leonard returned to the lineup on Sunday against the Cleveland Cavaliers, scoring 20 points, but he couldn\u2019t rescue the Clippers, who have just two wins in November,<\/p>\n
Nov. 28 vs. Mavericks (5-13), 7 p.m., NBA Cup group play<\/b><\/p>\n
Stop me if you\u2019ve heard this before: Anthony Davis is injured. After missing his return to L.A. last year because of an abdominal strain, the former Lakers\u2019 star has been sidelined for almost a month with a calf injury, potentially delaying his much-anticipated first game in L.A. since the infamous trade.<\/p>\n
Nov. 30 vs. Pelicans (2-15), 6:30 p.m.<\/b><\/p>\n
The Pelicans took a big swing to draft Derik Queen in the first round last April and the former Maryland star is starting to show some signs of promise. Queen averaged 23.3 points and 8.3 rebounds in three games against Atlanta, Dallas and Denver. He added 11 assists in a 118-115 loss to the Mavericks that eliminated New Orleans from NBA Cup contention.<\/p>\n
Dec. 1 vs. Suns (11-6), 7 p.m<\/b>.<\/p>\n
Losing Kevin Durant to free agency made it seem like Devin Booker and Phoenix would be in rebuild mode, but they\u2019re in the thick of the West. Booker leads the team with 26.9 points and 7.1 assists per game.<\/p>\n
Best thing I ate this week <\/p>\n
Thit nuong<\/p>\n
(Thuc Nhi Nguyen \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n
While the Lakers played pickleball, I was soaking up my extended home time with loved ones. One of my easy crowd pleasers is thit nuong, which is Vietnamese grilled pork. Slices of pork shoulder are marinated with garlic, shallots, lemongrass, soy sauce, fish sauce, sugar and oyster sauce, threaded onto skewers and grilled. (I, however, don\u2019t have a grill so I bake mine on a rack in the oven.) They\u2019re a great finger food eaten off the skewer or as a meal with rice or, in this case, rice noodles. And it\u2019s not Vietnamese if there aren\u2019t pickled carrots and daikon.<\/p>\n
My dad once told me my thit nuong was better than my mom\u2019s. It is my greatest culinary accomplishment.<\/p>\n
In case you missed it<\/p>\n
\u2018Legend\u2019: Claire Rothman, Forum president during Lakers\u2019 \u2018Showtime\u2019 dynasty, dies at 97<\/a> <\/p>\n Luka Doncic helps Lakers hold off Jazz for fourth win in a row<\/a> <\/p>\n LeBron James\u2019 return has Marcus Smart becoming Lakers\u2019 \u2018Swiss Army knife\u2019<\/a> <\/p>\n Dodgers boss Andrew Friedman part of team to advise Lakers in ownership transition<\/a> <\/p>\n Lakers fire executives Joey and Jesse Buss and members of scouting staff<\/a> <\/p>\n Hern\u00e1ndez: LeBron James\u2019 \u2018very unselfish\u2019 play shows he can fit in. Will it continue?<\/a> <\/p>\n \u2018The dude\u2019s a machine\u2019: Three takeaways from LeBron James\u2019 return to the Lakers<\/a> <\/p>\n Until next time…<\/p>\n As always, pass along your thoughts to me at thucnhi.nguyen@latimes.com<\/a>, and please consider subscribing<\/a> if you like our work!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Welcome back to the Lakers newsletter, where we got plenty of rest while the team played pickleball. A…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":403751,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[190819,59416,23301,83097,8604,2444,1260,21063,7825,9323,7629,62,190820,3007,6620,190821,124365,67,132,68,2452],"class_list":{"0":"post-403750","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-big-trade-move","9":"tag-guys","10":"tag-howard","11":"tag-jerami-grant","12":"tag-lakers","13":"tag-los-angeles-times","14":"tag-nba","15":"tag-next-month","16":"tag-pandemic","17":"tag-player","18":"tag-players","19":"tag-sports","20":"tag-talen-horton","21":"tag-team","22":"tag-time","23":"tag-trade-season","24":"tag-tucker","25":"tag-united-states","26":"tag-unitedstates","27":"tag-us","28":"tag-week"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115610758489989571","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403750","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=403750"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403750\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/403751"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=403750"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=403750"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=403750"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}