Lakers–Clippers rivalry
National Basketball Association cross-town rivalry in Los Angeles / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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The Lakers–Clippers rivalry is a National Basketball Association (NBA) rivalry between the Los Angeles Lakers and Los Angeles Clippers.[1] The two Pacific Division teams both play their home games in the Greater Los Angeles area, thus inspiring their matchups to sometimes be called the "Battle of L.A." The Lakers originally relocated from Minneapolis in 1960, while the Clippers moved from San Diego in 1984 after previously moving to San Diego from Buffalo, New York while going away from the original Buffalo Braves name in 1978. While Los Angeles fans have historically favored the Lakers, the Clippers have sold out or filled capacity for every home game at Staples Center since Feb. 2011 and entered the 2016–17 season with the sixth-longest active sellout streak in the NBA, which continued up until the COVID-19 pandemic.[2][3] The Lakers have won 12 of their 17 NBA championships since moving to Los Angeles.[4] Meanwhile, the Clippers have made the playoffs only eleven times since 1984 and remain arguably the least successful professional sports franchise in North America,[5][6][7][8] and had never advanced past the second round of the playoffs until 2021.[9] Some contended that the term rivalry was inaccurate due to the Lakers historical success and the Clippers historical lack of success.[10] In 2012–13, the Clippers won the first of six straight season series against the Lakers.[11]
The Lakers hold a 107–66 advantage in the all-time series since the Clippers moved to Los Angeles.[lower-alpha 1] The two teams have never met in the playoffs, though both Los Angeles teams were very close to meeting each other twice in the twenty-first century before they each blew their respective playoff series leads. The Lakers lost a 3–1 series lead against another Pacific Division rival of theirs in the Phoenix Suns and failed to advance to the Western Conference Semifinals against the Clippers in 2006, while the Clippers also lost a 3–1 lead against the Denver Nuggets in 2020, nixing a Western Conference Finals matchup with the eventual NBA champion Lakers that was held entirely at the ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex that year due to the 2020 NBA Bubble.
From the creation of the then-named Staples Center in 1999 until 2024 with the Clippers ending their lease with the arena, their matchups were also sometimes called the "Hallway Series" due to their locker rooms being in a separate hallway around 80 to 100 feet apart from each other. For the first game of theirs in what was dubbed as the "Hallway Series" while under the Staples Center, the Lakers (holding homecourt advantage and being led by their dynamic duo of Shaquille O'Neal and Kobe Bryant) crushed the Clippers 95–68, with that game also being notable for the Clippers scoring a franchise-low 19 total points in the first half, including a lowly total of 3 points in the entire second quarter by a made basket from Michael Olowokandi and a free-throw made by Lamar Odom.[13] For their final regular season game against each other in the "Hallway Series" at the Crypto.com Arena, the Lakers provided a 21-point comeback in the fourth quarter (including LeBron James scoring 19 points in that quarter alone) to win 116–112 on February 28, 2024 against the Clippers, who were the home team that night.[14] Barring any potential playoff series match-ups in the 2024 NBA playoffs between these two teams (which would be their first ever in that rivalry), the next time they'll play against each other in the regular season will either be in the Crypto.com Arena without the Clippers being nearby the Lakers or will be held in the Clippers' new home arena at the Intuit Dome in nearby Inglewood, California for the 2024–25 season.