The Los Angeles Lakers and the Los Angeles Clippers are doing alright, and they maintain an upward rise as the season moves along. In this past week, both experienced a strong rise in the standings.
The Clippers have been playing as well as they possibly can on their long road trip to the East, winning four of their five games while the Grammy set-up was taking place in Staples. With wins over quality teams like the Orlando Magic and the Philadelphia 76ers and only one loss to the underrated Cleveland Cavaliers, LA finds themselves sitting at four in Marc Stein's latest power rankings.
The Clips would be taking a 5-0 record into the sixth and final game of their Grammys Road Trip in Dallas on Monday night if they could have beaten the Kyrie-less Cavs on Wednesday night. Yet this is still the best 25-game start for the franchise since it moved from San Diego to L.A. in 1984-85.
The Lakers have had more checkered success on their Grammy Road Trip, but two wins against the Celtics and the Raptors keeps them moving up as well. However, losses to the Sixers and to the Knicks caused problems.
Kobe didn't just salvage a 3-3 record on the Lakers' own Grammys trip with that corner dagger in Toronto. He also reopened the whole "clutch" debate because it was the 16th career game winner he's drained inside the final five seconds ... more than any other player since his rookie year in 1996-97.
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