Alkass Digital
Kawhi Leonard and Paul George are sitting out Sunday when the Los Angeles Clippers host Milwaukee in their second early afternoon game in two days.
The NBA scheduled the Clippers to tip off at 12 p.m. Pacific time on Sunday after they beat Chicago 112-102 with a 1 p.m. start time on Saturday.
Factoring in the hour lost to daylight saving time, that's two tipoffs in 22 hours for the Clippers (41-21), who decided not to put those demands on the lingering injuries nursed by Leonard and George.
"Very extreme,” Clippers coach Tyronn Lue said. "That’s why we’re just so excited to get to the Intuit Dome next year, get our own place.”
The Clippers have shared the downtown arena long known as Staples Center since it opened in 1999 with the Los Angeles Lakers and the NHL’s Los Angeles Kings.
The Lakers face Minnesota on Sunday night, while the Kings lost 4-1 to Dallas on Saturday night.
The 17-time NBA champion Lakers are the most popular sports team by most measures in the U.S.' second-largest metropolitan area, while the downtown arena is owned by Anschutz Entertainment Group, which also owns the Kings.
That usually leaves the Clippers with several unfavorable scheduling challenges each year - including regular afternoon home games on weekends, thanks to the necessity of scheduling a combined 123 regular-season sporting events during the concurrent NBA and NHL seasons.
Sunday’s Clippers-Lakers doubleheader was the 261st in the building’s history.
Milwaukee coach Doc Rivers was the Clippers' coach from 2013 to 2020, and he never got used to the team's scheduling challenges.
"It was awful,” Rivers said. "I think we did two or three of these (back-to-back afternoon weekend games) a year. It's just not natural. Being here, you get used to it, but it's still not normal.”
The good news is that this back-to-back afternoon home weekend is almost certainly the last in Clippers history.
Billionaire Clippers owner Steve Ballmer will open the palatial Intuit Dome in Inglewood next season, ending a quarter-century of third-choice tenancy for the franchise he purchased in 2014.
The Clippers also hope to receive more national television showcases with more normal game times.