INGLEWOOD — Clippers coach Tyronn Lue said the team’s goal is to go 35-20 the rest of the season. After thinking about it, he changed that to 36-19, to give the team a winning final record (42-40).
The idea seemed far-fetched before the Clippers faced the Lakers on Saturday night at the Intuit Dome. Any sustained stretch of winning has felt unlikely as the team slowly sunk to near the bottom of the Western Conference standings with just six victories through 27 games.
But then the unthinkable happened.
The Clippers (7-21) overwhelmed a short-handed, cold-shooting Lakers team, 103-88, to snap a five-game losing streak in front of a slightly pro-Lakers sellout crowd, securing their first home win since Halloween.
“We got to start at one,” Lue said. “We told our guys that today. I thought we came out with the right intent. Like I said, being up 15 at halftime, I thought we should have been up probably 20 to 25. And that second half, we just didn’t run through the tape. We got to get better with that. But it is a huge win for us.”
The Lakers (19-8) were without three of their normal starters – guard Austin Reaves (left calf), center Deandre Ayton (elbow) and forward Rui Hachimura, who was downgraded hours before tipoff because of a sore groin. They still had four-time league MVP LeBron James and five-time All-Star Luka Doncic, until Doncic exited the game at halftime with a left leg contusion.
With so much firepower sidelined, the Lakers didn’t have enough to keep up with the Clippers, who got a season-high 32 points from Kawhi Leonard and 21 points and 10 assists from James Harden to win for the first time since Dec. 3 and for only the second time in a month.
“Like these last five, six games, I think we’ve been playing well, just haven’t put it together for a full four quarters,” Harden said. “So tonight was kind of just to get the monkey off our back. Now we just have to watch film and figure out what ways we can get better.”
Like all their games lately, it wasn’t easy.
Unlike their recent games, though, the Clippers didn’t fall apart in the second half, which had become something of a bad habit.
The Clippers dominated their cross-town rivals for the first three quarters, leading by as many as 22 points as the Lakers struggled offensively. The Clippers held an 80-61 advantage heading into the fourth quarter.
That’s when James kicked the Lakers into overdrive, scoring 12 consecutive points to close the gap to 80-73.
The Clippers answered with back-to-back 3-pointers by John Collins and Harden to go with Leonard’s dunk off a James turnover, but the Clippers have let several games slip away down the stretch this season and the game was far from over.
The Lakers – who shot an abysmal 6 for 38 from 3-point range – scored six points in a row to close within 88-79 on a Jake LaRavia putback with 4:45 left. Harden answered with his fourth 3-pointer and a free throw to give the Clippers a 92-81 lead.
The Lakers made one final push, again cutting the margin to nine points (97-88) on a 3-pointer by James with 1:57 remaining. Harden made two free throws with 1:38 left, and Leonard added a pair of his own to close out the victory.
“We just didn’t make shots. It happens over the course of a season,” James said. “We had some great looks. We just didn’t make shots. But we still gave ourselves a chance to be in the game with how well we defended, our competitive spirit, our competitive nature and just (didn’t have enough).”
James, who turns 41 on Dec. 30, scored a team-high 36 points for the Lakers. Doncic, who came into the game averaging a league-leading 35.2 ppg, finished with 12 on 4-of-13 shooting (1 for 6 from 3-point range) in 20 minutes. He was coming off a triple-double of 45 points, 11 rebounds and 14 assists in Thursday’s win in Utah.
LaRavia added 12 points and was the only other Lakers player to score in double figures. The team shot just 38.6% from the field (34 for 88) and the aforementioned 15.8% from behind the arc, with Marcus Smart going 0 for 9 from long range.
“Yeah, you know, there’s nights like this,” Smart said. “It’s part of the game. You know, you just got to find a way to put the ball in the hoop. That means putting more pressure on defense to get a stop or just find a way. But that happens. It’s part of the game. You got to be able to move on. Can’t get too high, can’t get too low.”
John Collins added 17 points and 12 rebounds for the Clippers, who shot 42.5% overall (34 for 80) and 37.2% (16 for 43) from 3-point range.
Clippers center Ivica Zubac twisted his ankle in a collision near the basket with 1:13 left in the first quarter and did not return. But the Lakers couldn’t take advantage of his absence and trailed 54-39 at halftime.
Harden said getting the rare victory was a huge relief.
“We’ve been on the other side so many times this year to where we’ve had leads,” Harden said. “I think we’ve probably led in every single game we played. We’ve had big leads and then allowed them to just (dissolve), however that looks. So just finding a way to win a game, man. And it feels like it’s been forever, but I feel good.”