The Lakers look to make it back to back wins here as they face the Clippers Thursday night on TNT. This isn’t your “usual” second night of a back to back for the Purple & Gold. While listed as “the road team,” this is the same building they won in last night, defeating Portland 99-94.

The Lakers did have to rally to get the win last night. They outscored Portland 27-19 in the fourth quarter. They also got 30 points from Anthony Davis, 19 of those coming in the final stanza.

Both LA teams are under .500 and just trying to catch up to the top six in the West. I think it’s unlikely either will do so, and thus they’ll be relegated to the play-in round come April. The Lakers are playing without LeBron James right now, but the Clippers don’t have either Paul George or Kawhi Leonard.

The Clippers are coming off a 4-4 road trip that took them all over the country. They were a bit lucky to finish the trip at .500 as there were multiple huge comebacks. They trailed the Sixers by 24, Wizards by 35 and Magic by 14. Those were all games that they somehow WON.

Not tonight though. Even with two days rest, I expect the Clippers to struggle coming off the long road trip. They are actually 0-5 ATS this season when playing with exactly two days of rest. The Lakers are 8-2 ATS after a game where they failed to score 100 points.