{"id":461045,"date":"2025-12-20T23:42:12","date_gmt":"2025-12-20T23:42:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/461045\/"},"modified":"2025-12-20T23:42:12","modified_gmt":"2025-12-20T23:42:12","slug":"lakers-at-clippers-preview-battle-in-inglewood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/461045\/","title":{"rendered":"Lakers at Clippers Preview: Battle in Inglewood"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Lakers (19\u20137) vs. Clippers (6\u201321) | Game 27 of 82<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Where to Watch and What Time<\/p>\n<p>\ud83d\udcc5 Date: Saturday, Dec. 20<\/p>\n<p>\u23f0 Tip-off: 7:30 p.m. PST<\/p>\n<p>\ud83d\udccd Location: Intuit Dome \u2014 Inglewood, California<\/p>\n<p>\ud83d\udcfa TV: Spectrum SportsNet, NBA TV<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>\ud83d\udcfb Radio: ESPN LA 710 \/ 1330 KWKW<\/p>\n<p>Game Preview<\/p>\n<p>The Los Angeles Lakers head south of the 10 Freeway to face the Clippers for the second time this season and the first time at Intuit Dome.<\/p>\n<p>While the Lakers have won three of their last four games with a 19-7 record, the Clippers have been beyond disappointing this season with the third-worst record in the NBA (second-worst in the West) at 6-21, losing five straight and 10 of their last 11 games.<\/p>\n<p>The Lakers will be down three starters against their cross-town rivals, missing Austin Reaves, Deandre Ayton and Rui Hachimura, along with backup guard Gabe Vincent.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>The Lakers will again look to Luka Don\u010di\u0107 and LeBron James, who have pushed L.A. to two straight wins coming into this game.<\/p>\n<p>Don\u010di\u0107 is coming off a 45-point triple-double\u2014his third of the season\u2014in the Lakers&#8217; 143-135 road win against the Jazz, while James had 28-7-10.<\/p>\n<p>The Opponent and their Top Dogs<\/p>\n<p>Injuries and being the oldest team in the NBA have been issues for this team. Norman Powell&#8217;s replacement, Bradley Beal, played only six games before ending his season because of a hip injury.<\/p>\n<p>Kawhi Leonard has missed 10 games this season, averaging 24.8 points in 17 games.<\/p>\n<p>James Harden has been the Clippers&#8217; lone bright spot, playing at an All-Star level in his 17th season. In 25 games, he&#8217;s averaged 26.0 points (12th highest in the NBA) and 8.1 assists.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>Ivica Zubac will be a challenge for this Lakers team with Ayton out, leaving bigger roles for Jaxson Hayes and Maxi Kleber on the assignment, as Zubac has averaged 16 and 11 this season.<\/p>\n<p>Notable Opponent Ranks Among the NBA<\/p>\n<p>The Clippers have the 23rd-rated (112.8) offense and fifth-worst-rated (118.9) defense in the NBA. Here are some notable (good and meh) rankings of where they sit among the league.<\/p>\n<ul class=\"content-list\">\n<li>\n<p>2nd best FT% in NBA (82.9%)<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p>3rd fewest points scored a game (110.9)<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p>Tied for the worst turnover percentage in the NBA (16.4)<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p>16th FG% in the NBA (47%)<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p>20th 3P% in the NBA (35.1%)<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p>28th in fast break points a game (12.4)<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p>Allow the most fast break points a game (17.8)<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Injury Report<\/p>\n<p><strong>Lakers:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul class=\"content-list\">\n<li>\n<p>Austin Reaves (calf strain): Out<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p>Rui Hachimura (right groin soreness): Out<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p>Deandre Ayton (elbow soreness): Out<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p>Gabe Vincent (lower back tightness): Out<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Clippers:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul class=\"content-list\">\n<li>\n<p>Cam Christie (foot): Day-to-day<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p>Yanic Konan Niederhauser (knee): Out<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p>Derrick Jones Jr. (knee): Out<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p>Bradley Beal\u00a0(season-ending hip surgery): Out<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Threads for the Game<\/p>\n<p>The Lakers will wear their white threads on the road, while the Clippers will don their new red statement edition uniforms.<\/p>\n<p>Next Matchup<\/p>\n<p>The Lakers will travel back to Phoenix for their next matchup on Tuesday and then play the following five games at home, starting on Christmas against the Rockets.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lakers (19\u20137) vs. Clippers (6\u201321) | Game 27 of 82 Where to Watch and What Time \ud83d\udcc5 Date:&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":461046,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[17378,7234,276,45184,3372,36856,67077,36857,18169,6271,10607,3370,3363,224,3142,3141,3365,121575,1260,20542,5565,25927,62,67,132,68,2969,45932],"class_list":{"0":"post-461045","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-austin-reaves","9":"tag-bradley-beal","10":"tag-california","11":"tag-cam-christie","12":"tag-deandre-ayton","13":"tag-derrick-jones-jr","14":"tag-gabe-vincent","15":"tag-ivica-zubac","16":"tag-james-harden","17":"tag-jaxson-hayes","18":"tag-jazz","19":"tag-kawhi-leonard","20":"tag-lebron-james","21":"tag-los-angeles","22":"tag-los-angeles-clippers","23":"tag-los-angeles-lakers","24":"tag-luka-doncic","25":"tag-maxi-kleber","26":"tag-nba","27":"tag-norman-powell","28":"tag-rockets","29":"tag-rui-hachimura","30":"tag-sports","31":"tag-united-states","32":"tag-unitedstates","33":"tag-us","34":"tag-usa","35":"tag-yanic-konan-niederhauser"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115754548904160062","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461045","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=461045"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461045\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/461046"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=461045"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=461045"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=461045"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}