EL SEGUNDO, Calif. -- The South Bay Lakers (2-4) took down the visiting San Diego Clippers (4-2) 95-85 Tuesday night at home at the UCLA Health Training Center in revenge for a loss to San Diego last week.
Effort was the defining accolade of the South Bay victory.
The Lakers’ defense was active early, they had three steals in the first alone. The tenacious Laker defense was aided by San Diego’s own inability to handle the ball.
The Clippers had seven turnovers in the first quarter alone.
Alex Fudge recovered the last of several offensive rebounds from Kylor Kelley as Kelley battled under the rim against a swarm of Clipper defenders and looped a layup into the net to widen the score gap 31-19 in favor of the Lakers to close out the first quarter.
Armel Traore led the way in minutes for South Bay and finished the night with 17 points and a team-leading 22 rebounds.
“I just play hard, I think I'm the dog,” Traore said in a post-game interview. “I just try to play the right way… just play with energy, ‘cause that’s my game.”
Five Lakers, including Traore, scored double digit point totals in the game and South Bay shot 42.2% in field goals and 30% from three as a team.
The Lakers were playing short-handed with several Lakers out with injury, including Bronny James, who did not play due to an ongoing left-heel contusion. The Lakers further dwindled when Fudge left the game in the third quarter with a leg injury following a hard fall.
Any insurance points South Bay earned in the first were erased by the Clippers opening the second with a 13 point unanswered run to take the lead 32-31 with just under nine minutes left in the quarter. The Lakers came up empty on their first first seven field goal attempts in the second.
While the Lakers stumbled hard to open the second quarter, they found their groove again as the quarter drew to a close. A 10-7 scoring run in the final three minutes of the half punctuated by two alley-oop slam dunks by Kelley stretched a South Bay l took them into the half still up 50-44 after losing the lead early in the quarter. The Clippers out-scored South Bay by six in the second.
“We’ve got to find actions and multiple actions throughout the course of the possession. We can’t let it get static and turn into iso basketball,” South Bay head coach Zach Guthrie said in an in-game interview.
The biggest difference between the teams in the first half was rebounds. The Lakers pulled down 30 boards as a team in the half compared to San Diego’s 21. The aggressiveness buoyed South Bay through the half even after the Clippers turned up the heat.
“It's about our discipline to do the hard things over and over again,” Guthrie said in an in-game interview.
In the third it was the Lakers’ turn to come busting out the gate. A 7-2 scoring run for South Bay stretched their lead 57-46 in a quarter with markedly less scoring compared to the blistering first two.
However, the Clippers shot back with nine unanswered points to erase the Laker lead and tie the game at 60 a piece with just under five minutes left in the third.
Both teams went nearly point for point in the remainder of the third with the Lakers finishing the quarter on top 70-67, their shortest quarter-ending lead of the night.
The packed house of Laker and Clipper fans alike began to get rowdy as both teams heated up in their tight scoring exchange.
South Bay kept their momentum in the final quarter of the game with a 9-2 run to return their lead to double digits, 79-69. They didn’t look back after that.
The Lakers held the lead for the rest of the night and closed out the game with a 95-85 victory, snapping a four-game skid and taking revenge against San Diego for a loss last week.
South Bay plays again tomorrow, Nov. 27, against the Rip City Remix at home at 7 p.m.