James Harden will attempt to resume his potent scoring spree when the Los Angeles Clippers square off against the host Los Angeles Lakers on Tuesday night.
Harden is averaging 33.6 points over the past eight games, including a franchise-record 55 on Saturday the Clippers’ 131-116 road victory over the Charlotte Hornets.
The 36-year-old guard equaled a career best by sinking 10 3-pointers during the explosion.
“Making the right decision,” Harden said of his ability to score with ease. “That’s how I play every single game. Some nights, I’m really, really good at it. Some nights, I’m not the best at it. And I try to be great every single night. Yeah, it’s just that simple.”
Harden was held to 19 points one day later when the Clippers lost 120-105 to the host Cleveland Cavaliers. Harden misfired on all eight of his 3-point attempts.
Despite Harden’s recent scoring exploits, the Clippers have dropped 10 of their past 12 games entering the clash with the Lakers in an NBA Cup matchup. The Clippers and Lakers share the five-team West Group B lead with 2-0 records.
The Lakers have won four straight games, the past two with LeBron James on the floor for the first time this season.
The Lakers defeated the Utah Jazz in both contests after James returned from a bout of sciatica. The 40-year-old averaged 14 points, 10 assists and 4.5 rebounds in the outings against the Jazz.
James played 30 minutes in his season debut on Nov. 18 and 34 minutes on Sunday.
The Lakers’ other superstar, Luka Doncic, leads the league in scoring at 34.5 points per game to go with 8.9 assists and 8.8 rebounds. He averaged 37 points over the past three games, including a 41-point outing against the Milwaukee Bucks on Nov. 15, his fourth 40-point effort of the season.
Doncic liked the club’s effort in the Sunday win over the Jazz.
“We have each other’s back. Everybody has each other’s back,” Doncic said. “Great teams gotta find a way to win. (Sunday) by far was not our best game, and we found a way to win.”
Doncic shot just 5-for-22 from 3-point range in the two games against Utah. The usually solid Austin Reaves went 2-for-12 from long distance in those contests, and the Lakers collectively were 21-for-70 (30%).
Lakers coach JJ Redick was not thrilled with the poor long-range shooting.
“I told the guys this after the game: We’re literally one of the worst shooting teams in the NBA right now,” Redick said. “I don’t think that’s who we are. We’ve gotta make shots and we’ve gotta shoot them with confidence.”
James predicts the Lakers will turn things around soon.
“We’re not worried about it,” James said. “We got too many good shooters. It won’t last.”
Meanwhile, Clippers coach Tyronn Lue is hopeful his team will begin to rack up wins. Kawhi Leonard (ankle) returned from a 10-game absence to score 20 points in the loss to Cleveland. The Clippers went 2-8 without the six-time All-Star forward.
“If we just continue to stack days the right way, continue to understand what our foundation is on both sides of the basketball, then we’ll be a good team,” Lue said. “I know we had some injuries and we’ve been fighting through that. But everybody in the league’s injured, so we just got to continue to just keep doing things the right way, and then kind of build from there.”
The Tuesday contest opens the teams’ four-game season series. The Lakers went 3-1 against the Clippers last season.
