NBA 2018-19: 3 Talking Points as the Los Angeles Clippers come out on top against city rivals Los Angeles Lakers

The Los Angeles Clippers get yet another win against their city rivals Los Angeles Lakers to prove that they’re still the best in town, with a final scoreline of 118-107.

They were better than the Lakers in almost every way and this supremacy reflected on the final scoreline as well. The Lakers were heavily short-handed and they missed their best player LeBron James incredibly.

For the Clippers, they have been on a roll, winning back-to-back matches in an amazing fashion and proving why they deserve to be in the playoffs.

With this win, the Clippers are now ranked 4th in the Western Conference with a record of 21-14, while the Lakers slip down to the 7th spot with a record of 20-16. With all that in mind, here are the top 3 points from this match.

#3 The parity in the free-throw shooting of both the teams

Kyle Kuzma against the Los Angeles Clippers

The Lakers are the worst free throw shooting team in the league. They are ranked 30th for efficiency from the charity stripe. And this is probably the biggest reason for them losing a lot of close matches.

They can’t rely on even a single player from their squad to make a free-throw when the game is on-the-line or when they badly need it. This was the similar case in last game, and it happened again. They choked from the free-throw line, which cost them again.

On the other hand, the Clippers made sure that they took care of the charity points and didn’t take it lightly. As a result, they were rewarded with the win.

They are one of the best free-throw shooting teams as they are ranked 4th in the league and it reflects on their conference rank as well.

#2 Bench depth of both the teams

Los Angeles Clippers vs Los Angeles Lakers

These are tough times for the Lakers. Their best player is out and they’re heavily missing their backup point guard, Rajon Rondo. They don’t know how else to extract points from the bench. There are not a lot of options left for them.

On the other hand, the Clippers have a possible sixth man of the year candidate in Lou Williams who was the biggest factor in the Clippers win tonight. Then they have also got a lot of other quality pieces who could come off the bench and give a quick spurt in the scoring.

In today’s game the Clipper’s bench heavily outscored the Laker’s bench by 71 to 28. This deficit was too big for the Laker’s starters to cover and they gave in. They just didn’t have enough firepower to match the Clippers and their heavy arsenal of scoring options.

#1 Lou Williams and his hot shooting streak

Lou Williams was on fire against the Lakers

Lou Williams is again in contention for winning the 6th Man of the Year and rightly so. No, player comes off the bench and gives such a hot scoring spurt for their team like Lou.

This match was a classic example of it. The match was fairly close until Lou checked in and took over. The Lakers clearly didn’t have an answer for him and he was dancing his way around with them.

In today’s match Lou scored 36 points on 11 of 18 shooting. He has also been averaging 18.2 points per game on 38.7% shooting from the arc throughout the season.

If his hot streak continues and he keeps coming in with such amazing performances for the Clippers then he is in line to win another 6th man of the year award.

In their next game, the Clippers will face the Spurs in Staples Center while the Lakers will host the Kings, hopefully with LeBron James in the line-up.