The Los Angeles Clippers on Tuesday took full advantage of the injury absence of LeBron James to score a 127-116 victory over the Los Angeles Lakers.
Kawhi Leonard scored 25 points and James Harden added 23 as the Clippers’ impressive recent form continued with a third straight victory.
Former Lakers point guard Russell Westbrook was among six Clippers players to reach double figures in a balanced offensive performance by Tyronn Lue’s side.
Photo: AFP
The Lakers, missing James due to a sore ankle, were led by D’Angelo Russell with 27 points, while Anthony Davis finished with 26.
After briefly trailing early in the first quarter, the Clippers maintained control, leading by 16 points just before halftime and successfully keeping the Lakers at arm’s length for most of the game.
Although the Lakers got to within two points midway through the fourth quarter, the Clippers tightened their defense and pulled away late in the game.
“For us, we’re taking it day by day,” Westbrook said. “We’ve got so much talent, so many great Hall-of-Famers in this locker room and our job is to make sure that every night we keep chipping away.”
Tuesday’s victory leaves the Clippers in fourth place in the Western Conference standings with 28 wins against 14 losses, behind the Oklahoma City Thunder, Minnesota Timberwolves and Denver Nuggets.
In other games on Tuesday, the Oklahoma City Thunder moved to top spot in the West with a nail-biting 111-109 win over the Portland Trail Blazers.
Jalen Williams’ pull-up jump shot with two seconds remaining sealed the win for the Thunder, who trailed by nine points in the third quarter.
“It’s a shot I work on a lot,” Williams said. “Coach drew the play up for me to shoot it. He had a lot of faith in me to get to the spot I needed to be in and to make the shot.”
Nikola Jokic scored a 31-point triple-double as Denver held off a late rally to defeat the Indiana Pacers 114-109.
A wild game in Indianapolis saw the lead change hands 12 times before the Nuggets finally edged clear late in the fourth quarter.
Both teams led by double digits at different stages of the game, with the Pacers opening up a 13-point advantage in the second quarter, before a devastating third quarter from Denver — outscoring Indiana 39-19 — wrested back the initiative for the reigning NBA champions.
Even then, there was still time for the Pacers to fight back, wiping out the Nuggets’ 13-point fourth-quarter advantage to lead briefly before a late burst of scoring sealed Denver’s victory.
“The whole first half was bad, but the second half was good for us,” Jokic said. “We had a really good third quarter. We controlled the pace. We just need to do that in more of the game.”
Jokic finished with 31 points, 13 rebounds and 10 assists to lead Denver alongside Jamal Murray, who had 31 points with eight rebounds and seven assists.
With the Pacers still missing the injured Tyrese Haliburton, Indiana’s scoring was led by Myles Turner with 22 points, while new recruit Pascal Siakam finished with 16 points.
The Pacers had head coach Rick Carlisle ejected for questioning a no-foul call on Siakam in the third quarter.
“I got run out because I didn’t like what I was seeing out there at all. Not one bit,” Carlisle said. “I’ll leave it at that.”
The New York Knicks won their local derby with the Brooklyn Nets 108-103 after a remarkable late rally.
The Nets looked to be on course for victory after taking a 10-point lead late in the third quarter, only for the Knicks to outscore them 32-18 in the fourth quarter to snatch the win.
Julius Randle and Jalen Brunson each scored 30 points for the Knicks to set up a battling victory.
Mikal Bridges was the pick of Brooklyn’s scorers with 36 points.
BOUNCE BACK: Curry scored 46 points in the Warriors’ victory over the Spurs, after ‘everybody stepped up’ following Tuesday’s blowout loss to Oklahoma City Nikola Jokic scoring 50 or more points had never been enough for the Denver Nuggets to win — until now. Jokic on Wednesday night tied the highest-scoring performance in the NBA this season with 55 points, as the Nuggets beat the Los Angeles Clippers 130-116 for their sixth straight victory. The Nuggets were 0-4 in his previous 50-point outbursts. “It’s a good feeling,” the three-time NBA Most Valuable Player said. He equaled Oklahoma City Thunder star Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, who had 55 in a double-overtime game at the Indiana Pacers on Oct. 23. Jokic has been on a roll during Denver’s winning streak. He is the
TIGHT GAME: The Detroit Pistons, the NBA’s second-best team, barely outlasted the Washington Wizards, who fell to an NBA-worst 1-10 with their ninth consecutive loss Cade Cunningham’s triple double, Daniss Jenkins’ three-pointer at the buzzer and Javonte Green’s overtime dunk lifted Detroit past Washington 137-135 on Monday, stretching the Pistons’ win streak to seven games. In an unexpected thriller, the NBA’s second-best team barely outlasted a Wizards club that fell to an NBA-worst 1-10 with their ninth consecutive loss. “We knew how big this game was for us,” Jenkins said. “We wasn’t going to let nothing stop us from getting this W.” Cunningham made 14-of-45 shots and 16-of-18 free throws for a career-high 46 points, and added 12 rebounds, 11 assists, five steals and two
The tri-nation Twenty20 international series featuring hosts Pakistan, as well as Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe, is to be played entirely in Rawalpindi from Tuesday next week, the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) said yesterday, after this week’s suicide bombing in the capital, Islamabad. The change came after at least eight Sri Lankan players asked to leave over security fears following Tuesday’s bombing that killed 12 people and wounded 27. Their country’s cricket board issued a stern directive to the team to stay put or face consequences. Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) said the decision to stay was taken after “close consultations” with hosts Pakistan who
LIKE FINE WINE: Thirty-eight-year-old Djokovic won his 101st title of his career in Athens, becoming the oldest tournament winner since Ken Roswell, 44, in 1977 Elena Rybakina on Saturday clinched her biggest title since Wimbledon in 2022, defeating world No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka 6-3, 7-6 (7/0) at the WTA Finals in Riyadh. The world No. 6 put on yet another serving masterclass and was at her returning best as she became the first Kazakh and the first player representing an Asian country to lift the WTA Finals singles trophy. Having gone 3-0 in round-robin play, Rybakina earned a record US$5.235 million and would finish the year ranked No. 5 in the world. “It’s been an incredible week, I honestly didn’t expect any result, and to go so far,
RSS