LOS ANGELES — If we’ve yet to see if the road to the Finals still leads through Los Angeles, the road to Los Angeles still leads through the Lakers.
The once-and-perhaps-future local kingpins beat their new local rivals, the Clippers, 113-108, moving 2 1/2 games ahead of them in the Pacific Division, locking up the season series, 2-1.
Even if it was a Clipper home game, one-third of the crowd was rooting for the Lakers, greeting Andrew Bynum’s put-back for a 2-0 lead with a big roar as a Clippers official noted, “I don’t understand that.”
Of course, it was nothing compared to the roar seconds later when Blake Griffin came soaring in for an offensive rebounds, blowing Pau Gasol out of the way and jamming it two-handed.
“I understand that,” said the Clipper official.
If no one in this rivalry wants to acknowledge it, it’s definitely on in Lala Land, with one “La” standing for the Lakers, once lords of all they surveyed here, and the other for the Clippers, no longer relegated to being surveyed.
Nevertheless, it’s only a rivalry within the confines of the regular season.
Both teams have more on their minds than each other, which is standard for the Lakes but new for the Clips.
Actually, the Clippers are fine if it ends up as it is now with the Lakers as No. 3 seeds and the Clips at No. 4, putting them in different brackets in the West draw.
The Lakers’ seven-foot tandem is a hard matchup for the Clips, who start really-just 6-9 3/4 DeAndre Jordan and really-just 6-8 1/2 Blake Griffin with no one else even that tall in rotation.
Griffin had two vintage highlight dunks over Gasol Wednesday, blowing him out of the way on an offensive rebound, then doing his signature vault-over-him-straight-arming-him-in-his-face number.
Aside from that, Gasol held him to 11 points and 5-14 from the floor.
The Clippers don’t yet dare to run their mouths on the Lakers, and the Lakes think the Clips are beneath contempt, even if they were only 1 1/2 games beneath them coming into this one.
Nevertheless, it has been a rivalry from the moment the Clips beat the Lakes to Chris Paul, an unimaginable scenario in past seasons, eclipsing them locally, at least in entertainment value, with even Kobe Bryant conceding the Clips were more exciting.
The Clippers started 19-9 to the Lakers’ 16-12, winning their first meeting and leading the second by 10 points before the Lakers pulled that one out.
There were 11 technical fouls in the two meetings. Like everyone else who couldn’t handle Griffin, the Lakers manhandled him. The amiable Gasol, who plays Ferdinand the Bull to Bryant’s Black Mamba, punctuated one exchange by putting his hand paternally on Paul’s head, starting a woof-of between CP3, Pau and Kobe.
“Chris doesn’t like that stuff,” said Bryant, Paul’s teammate at the 2008 Olympics.
“He’s got that little-man complex. I do that to his head all the time. Man, he just hates it.”
Of course, the Lakers had more to worry about than the Clippers… like themselves… coming off last spring’s meltdown, the aborted trade for Paul that returned Gasol and Lamar Odom, the subsequent dump of Lamar Odom, the transition from Phil Jackson to Mike Brown and Phil’s triangle to Mike putting the ball in Bryant’s hands and hoping for the best, which turned out to be 93.1 points a game before the All-Star break, down from last season’s 101.5.
The Lakers have done a lot of tunneling out since, winning 20 of 28… weird as it has been, with Metta World Peace noting Brown’s roots as a “video guy;” Bynum suggesting a re-design of the offense so someone would cut when he was doubled; reports the players wanted Brown to re-install the triangle; Brown critiquing Bryant’s shot selection; Brown apologizing to Bryant, according to the Los Angeles Times; Brown benching Bryant in the fourth quarter of a home loss to the Grizzlies; Bryant’s shooting percentage falling to 39% in March; Brown benching Bynum for taking a 3-pointer in a win at Golden State; Bynum vowing to take more threes; Bynum blowing off a meeting with GM Mitch Kupchak and getting fined by the team; Bynum blowing off a game against the Nets, claiming an ankle injury.
Standing by Brown, whatever his real feelings on the subject, and needing someone to run his mouth on, Bryant recently asked the beat writers, “Why is everybody acting like we’re in eighth place?
“You guys were kissing the Clippers’ ass at the start of the season and now here we are in the third seed and everybody is acting like we suck. I don’t understand.”
Actually, he understands completely. He just doesn’t like it.
Similarly, the Clippers soon found they had more to worry about than the Lakers… like themselves, losing Chauncey Billups, dropping 12 of 19 as ESPN’s Chris Broussard quoted an unnamed source who claimed, “Vinny has lost the team.”
Apparently, Vinny then found the team, winning six in a row as Paul, used to dominating the ball, Steve Nash style, picked up the pace to get their greyhounds, Griffin and DeAndre Jordan, into the open court.
For both teams, Wednesday’s game was more about finding themselves than establishing any dominance over each other.
If last week’s one-sided home loss to the Thunder ended all that “road goes through L.A.” talk, the Lakers are continuing to make headway.
Ramon Sessions looks like he’ll help, and may help a lot, giving Brown someone who can run a pick-and-roll instead of the aging point guards he inherited who were only there because of the the triangle, in which they made entry passes and cut away from the ball.
It remains to be seen where the Lakes go from here… or which of them goes, because they’re still effectively playing four on five, with World Peace averaging 6.2 points, shooting 36%, as the starting small forward.
Pau for Deron Williams, anyone?
Sessions stays at the point, DWill goes to two, Kobe to the three, Josh McRoberts, the high-energy banger, goes to four and they’re no longer old and slow!
But that remains to be seen.
Meanwhile, the Clippers have to get Griffin extended this summer, signaling Paul it’s OK to re-up next summer, they hope.
Of course, if the season ends on a downer, Del Negro may be in trouble after all with Griffin and Paul so close to decision points, at which time we’ll see if there’s a new Donald T. Sterling, since the old one didn’t like to shell out for coaches, willing to bring in a D’Antoni, McMillan or Sloan.
As for the new rivalry, until the West Finals, or next season, that’s a wrap.
Mark Heisler is a regular contributor to SheridanHoops, LakersNation and the Old Gray Lady. His power rankings appear Wednesday and his columns appear Thursday. Follow him on Twitter.