- Draymond Green says he and LeBron James had a phone call and talked about how crazy it is to go from 3 championship rings to 4
- J.R. Smith seen working out alongside Lakers superstar LeBron James
- Bulls legend Scottie Pippen pens emotional letter to his son following his deal with Lakers
- Pacers lottery pick challenges LeBron James: ‘A lot of people say he’s great…he’s going to have to show me he’s better than me’
- Report: Lakers have the most interest out of all teams in Kyrie Irving
- Darvin Ham and Rob Pelinka have had multiple meetings with Russell Westbrook, imploring him to be defense-first player
- 3 reasons the Lakers should stay far away from Kyrie Irving
- Report: Lakers make trade for 2nd-round pick in 2022 NBA Draft
- Brian Windhorst says Kyrie Irving joining Lakers for mid-level exception can’t be ruled out
- Western Conference executive says ‘most likely scenario’ is Russell Westbrook going back to OKC Thunder
Report: ‘Totally true’ that Clippers tanked end of regular season to avoid Lakers early in playoffs
- Updated: May 26, 2021
Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports
It appears that the Los Angeles Clippers tanked at the end of the regular season in order to avoid playing the Los Angeles Lakers early on in the 2021 postseason.
.@Chris_Broussard received a text confirmation from a source who would know that it's "totally true" the Clippers tanked to avoid the Lakers 👀 pic.twitter.com/pxOU9S38OD
— UNDISPUTED (@undisputed) May 26, 2021
“The notion about Shannon [Sharpe] and I making this up about the Clippers tanking to avoid the Lakers,” reported Fox Sports’ Chris Broussard on Wednesday. “I texted somebody who would know, Skip, last week and I was like, ‘Man, I keep hearing that the Clippers tanked to avoid the Lakers. There’s no way I believe that. That can’t be true.’ I got the text back from a person that would know that, totally true, and he didn’t like it. He was ‘bad karma,’ all that. I believe it. They didn’t want the Lakers. I’m not saying they wouldn’t have been scared of them in the conference finals, but for whatever reason, they didn’t want them early. That’s what I’m told.”
There has been much talk about the Clippers losing the last two games of the regular season, which came against the subpar Houston Rockets and Oklahoma City Thunder, to shy away from the Lakers at the beginning of the playoffs.
As a matter of fact, Lakers veteran Jared Dudley subtly called out some teams for conducting tanking to avoid the defending champs.
Of course, the Lakers are the reigning heavyweights and still have four-time MVP LeBron James at the helm of operations so it makes sense why the Clippers would want to be prudent.
However, the apparent plan hasn’t worked too well as the Clippers are currently down 0-2 to the Dallas Mavericks in the first round of the 2021 playoffs. The Clippers dropped both losses at home.
Meanwhile, the Lakers have split the first two games of their first-round series versus the Phoenix Suns. The Lakers stole Game 2 on the road with a 109-102 victory on Tuesday.
Related Posts
About Justin Benjamin
