The “new” Clippers took the floor last night and made the “old” Lakers look well, uh, old.
Eventually, it will go down as just another preseason victory that will be forgotten, perhaps as soon as tomorrow. But for right now these Clips can revel in the fact that they’ve beaten their more famous and glorious big brother twice in the past two weeks with promises of more beat downs to come.
Chris Paul, the object of both L.A. teams’ affection, wore a Clippers uniform for the first time and had 17 points, nine assists and seven rebounds, showing why the Lakers wanted him too.
Chauncey Billups also looked great in a Clippers uniform. He scored 23 points in 20 minutes after being claimed off waivers from New York last week.
“It was a little extra for me personally,” said Paul, acquired from New Orleans for Chris Kaman, Eric Gordon, Al-Farouq Aminu and the Minnesota Timberwolves’ first-round pick next June.
“This is my first time ever putting on a different uniform. So it was fun to get up and down most of all because we’ve been competing against each other in practice.”
Is this a sign of things to come or did the Lakers simply play an ugly game?
Metta World Peace missed all eight of his shots. Matt Barnes started at small forward and was scoreless.
Andrew Bynum had 15 points but wasn’t very efficient, making five of 11 shots and five of 11 free-throw attempts. He had 12 rebounds.
Pau Gasoline ha
d just 16 points and Kobe had 22, with 12 of his points coming from free throw line.
The Clippers haven’t won a season series against the Lakers since 1992-93, but something tells me that that could very likely change this year.
