The Lakers were narrowly defeated by their city rivals the Clippers (115-119) in their first encounter this season. Frank Vogel chose to only use 9 players in this game, despite having 14 players available.

Namely, Kent Bazemore, DeAndre Jordan, Rajon Rondo, Avery Bradley and Chaundee Brown all did not play due to coach’s decision.

After the game, he was asked to talk about this decision. “We’re evolving,” Vogel said. “We’re still looking at different things with out group and obviously playing Melo and Bron in centerless lineup with the second unit has been really good for us.

“We didn’t do well with that lineup tonight, but there’s things that we could have done better within those minutes. Continue to evaluate and get better.”

Following this win, the Clippers overtook the Lakers in the standings by improving their record to 12-11 while the purple and gold went down to 12-12.