Whenever the Lakers play the Clippers, there’s always this urge to talk about all these different angles and work through what’s important, but I’m going to keep this short and to the point: go win the game.
The Lakers beat the Bucks on Friday, which was fantastic. I’d very much like to see the same thing happen vs. the Clippers today. I honestly don’t care how it happens, so details or specifics of what they would do to get it done aren’t on the front of my mind right now.
Don’t get me wrong, I do understand there are things that will need to take place and ways the Lakers can, hopefully, achieve their end objective. These thing are super important and should not be minimized or glossed over — we’ve talked about them before.
Slow down Kawhi. Limit Paul George. Get LeBron scoring opportunities in the paint. Get AD the ball in space. Limit turnovers, rebound on both ends, defend the arc, and hit threes yourself. I could add 50 more things here, including small matchup details that live on the margins, but can and will matter when trying to win a game vs. a really good team.
I’m not going to do any of that, though. Because, honestly, while I care about those things going the Lakers way, I’m really just focused on the end result here; I’m only concerned about when you add up all the columns and roll them up to the top level, how many of them favor the Lakers and what does it mean on the scoreboard. I get that the devil is in the details, but I’m really just looking at one detail here:
Go win the game.
Where you can watch: 12:30pm start time on ABC.