On NBA opening night in October, the LA Clippers beat the Los Angeles Lakers. The Lakers took revenge by beating them on NBA reopening night yesterday. In a hotly contested game, the Lakers won by just two points, taking advantage of a Clippers free night.
But the Clippers also didn’t have two of their top players. Lou Williams missed the game due to quarantine. On the other hand, Montrezl Harrell was absent as he has not returned to the bubble after leaving due to a family emergency.
Because of this, Lakers legend and Hall of Fame member Shaquille O’Neal was unimpressed by the performance of his former team.
During the NBA show on TNT, he said: “I would like to see the Lakers exercise more dominance. Beating the Clippers by two without Montrez Harrell and Lou (Williams), I’m not really impressed by that. As they are the number one team in the West, I would like to see them begin to exercise dominance by destroying teams (outside). “
What else should the Los Angeles Lakers do?
The Lakers were helped a lot by the negligence of their rivals. The Clippers gave up 20 turnovers and were penalized with the Lakers scoring 30 points. In addition to Paul George and Kawhi Leonard, the Clippers had a terrible night of shooting 34% of the field.
As for the Lakers, LeBron James won it in the clutch, however he had a bad game before. The Lakers will expect him to do much better than just 6/19 from the field. Danny Green also had a bad night, shot 2/6 and also gifted four turnovers.
As Shaq said, against a depleted team like the Clippers, the Lakers should have done more, considering they are the number one team in the West. And if they want to stay there, they must be more dominant and show a killer instinct. But after this win, the Lakers only need two more wins from the next seven games to stay the number one seed. Next time they will face the Toronto Raptors tomorrow and they hope to have a better game and be able to put the game to bed earlier.
Sources:
Los Angeles Clippers vs Los Angeles Lakers Box Score
Los Angeles Lakers Schedule
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