On Halloween, the Los Angeles Lakers face a scary proposition: the Los Angeles Clippers.
Only one professional sports rivalry in LA holds any weight, and the Lakers and Clippers takes center court in downtown LA on Friday night to battle for LA. Staples Center will be a buzz as Kobe Bryant takes the court for his second home game of the 2014-15 season, this time against Chris Paul and Blake Griffin.
After dialing up the drama and calling Dwight Howard "soft" in the Lakers' season opener, Bryant went to Phoenix and struck a venomous chord.
In Arizona, Bryant entered game no. 2 icing a sore shoulder, but those pains did not stop the fourth greatest scorer of all time from hitting shot after shot. In three quarters of work, Bryant put up 31 points, three assists, four rebounds and two steals.
The Black Mamba played 28 minutes, and his teammates mostly stood and watched. "Kobe’s the least of my worries," Lakers' coach Byron Scott said Wednesday night.
Those worries included a 20-point loss to the Suns, allowing 119 points, his team’s fragile mental state after watching rookie Julius Randle break his leg in his NBA debut and rebounding from two crushing blowout defeats.
"We’re not as bad as these two games," ESPN Los Angles' Baxter Holmes reported Bryant saying after Wednesday's loss. "We're not."
A season ago, the Lakers shocked their Staples Center co-tenants without Bryant in the lineup. This time, the Black Mamba is coming off a remarkable offensive performance that involved attempting 25 field goals. Bryant is back and determined to make a statement on Friday night.
For the Lakers, their timing is impeccable. After a ragged preseason where the Clippers lost six of eight games, Steve Ballmer's team narrowly pulled out a win over an Oklahoma City Thunder team missing Kevin Durant for the game and Russell Westbrook for the second half.
Still, the Clippers only won by three points with Paul missing a pair of free throws down the stretch.
Of the Lakers' first four games on the schedule, game no. 3 on Friday night against the Clippers always offered the Lakers their best chance to claim their first win of the 2014-15 season.
After the back-to-back losses, the Lakers had the opportunity to rest their legs on Thursday. The Clippers, on the other hand, experienced the high emotions of opening night and the high drama of a close game. Less than 24 hours after logging 38 minutes apiece, Griffin and Paul will face a hostile crowd backing a refreshed team of Lakers starving for a win.
Tip-off is 7:30 p.m. Pacific Time.
