Frank Vogel On The Clippers: 'They Give A Lot Of People Trouble'
The Clippers have eluded the Lakers so far.
The Lakers have lost their last two games to their hallway rivals, and will play them again at Staples Center on Sunday in the third meeting between the top two teams in the Western Conference.
Lakers' coach Frank Vogel downplayed the importance of winning Sunday's game, saying the Lakers don't need a victory over the Clippers in the regular season to feel confident against them in the postseason.
"Not really," Vogel said. "The regular season games, at the end of the day, when the playoffs come around don’t really matter. For us, it’s just about getting better and believing that every time we take the floor, we can beat anybody when we’re at our best. And no matter what happens tomorrow is going to change that."
The Lakers are atop the Western Conference with a record of 48-13, 5 1/2 games ahead of the second-place Clippers (43-19).
The Lakers fell to the Clippers in their season opener on Oct. 22, 112-102, and again on Christmas, 111-106.
LeBron James, however, said not much can be gleaned from those games.
"The first game, we kind of threw that game out the window," James said after the Lakers beat Milwaukee on Friday, 113-103. "It’s the first game of the season. Who were we? Who were they? They had way more returning guys than we did. We were still trying to figure out ourselves. And then the Christmas Day game we didn’t play to our capabilities. We played great in the first half, and then the second half we let it kind of get away from us. So we just look forward to see if we can continue to play good basketball, no matter win, lose or draw."
Vogel said that the Clippers are a tough team to beat with superstars Kawhi Leonard and Paul George surrounded by a lot of depth.
"I just think they’re a complete team," Vogel said. "They give a lot of people trouble...Obviously we let Lou [Williams] get going and we let Kawhi get going too much. PG hurt us with shot fakes in the second half last game. They hurt you in a lot of different ways, but we’ve just got to play a more complete game."
It's an important stretch for the Lakers, who just beat a Bucks team with the best record in the league and now face another tough test two days later.
"We just have to execute offensively," Vogel said. "I feel good about our coverages. They make things very difficult with the fire power that they have. So we’ve just got to be really dialed into the execution of our coverages and then make sure that we’re executing offensively so we can share the basketball and get great shot quality from that side of the floor."
