The Los Angeles Lakers held a seven-point advantage over the Los Angeles Clippers on Thursday night, leading 20-13 after a Jodie Meeks jumpshot with 5:30 remaining in the first quarter. From there, though, Doc Rivers' club went on a little run.
Well, I guess you could call it kind of a big run.
OK, they outscored the Lakers 129-74 for the rest of the game. And it kind of didn't feel that close.
The Clippers destroyed the Lakers on Thursday by a score of 142-94. This wasn't just worse than the 39-point spanking the Clips laid on the Lakers back in January, and it wasn't just worse than the beating the Clips handed the Philadelphia 76ers last month. This was a 48-point annihilation that stands alone as the largest margin of victory in the history of the Clippers franchise, going all the way back to the Buffalo Braves days.
Moreover, though, this was the largest margin of defeat in the history of the Lakers franchise, even worse than the 46-point hammering that the 1994-95 Lakers suffered at the hands of the Portland Trail Blazers. And it came from Former Little Brother, on the Staples Center court, on national television. This is about as bad as it has ever gotten for the purple and gold.
Here is an representative survey of the sadness.
LAL trail 73-40 at the half after a disaster of a 2nd Q for the Lakers, in which they were outscored 44-13 and hit only 5 of 20 shots.
— Mike Trudell (@LakersReporter) March 7, 2014
(NOTE: The following play comes in the first minute immediately after halftime.)
The Mike D'Antoni Struggle (3rd Quarter Edition) pic.twitter.com/7n4ayCkLrV
— jose3030 (@jose3030) March 7, 2014
The LA Lakers Struggle v.1 pic.twitter.com/xedcR7uNPa
— jose3030 (@jose3030) March 7, 2014
The Mike D'Antoni Struggle v.2 pic.twitter.com/DvTm28hMfW
— jose3030 (@jose3030) March 7, 2014
The caption: "The game is such a blowout a Clipper fan took Jack Nicholson's seat."
I had to do it… #Clippers #Lakers pic.twitter.com/IvkMvWumgf
— Steve Noah (@Steve_OS) March 7, 2014
Imagine how bad the score would be if the Clippers didn't have 10 turnovers in the 1st quarter
— J.A. Adande (@jadande) March 7, 2014
The lead just got to 50 for the first time, and the Clippers starters are off the bench cheering. 31 seconds left.
— Mike Trudell (@LakersReporter) March 7, 2014
And the dagger:
I have been a #Lakers fan for over 35 years and had season tickets for almost a decade. For now, this franchise is lost without Dr Buss.
— Rob Lowe (@RobLowe) March 7, 2014
Losing Rob Lowe is unequivocally rock bottom.
— Matt Bilinsky (@mattbilinsky) March 7, 2014
Darren Collison led eight Clippers in double figures with 24 points on 9 for 16 shooting). Four Clippers posted double-doubles — Blake Griffin (20 points, 11 rebounds, seven assists in 26 minutes), Chris Paul (13 points, 11 assists, four rebounds, four steals in 26 minutes), DeAndre Jordan (14 points, 12 rebounds, three assists in 22 minutes) and Matt Barnes (17 points, 12 rebounds, five assists, three steals in 30 minutes). All 11 Clippers who played scored, as the team shot 55.3 percent from the floor, 12 for 26 from 3-point land, and outrebounded the Lakers 64-33 en route to their sixth straight win, which improved them to 43-20 on the season.

Pau Gasol had 21 points and seven rebounds for the Lakers. The Non-Pau Lakers shot a combined 36.6 percent from the floor. Mike D'Antoni's squad coughed the ball up 22 times, leading to 26 Clipper points, got outscored 80-33 in the second and third quarters combined, and trailed by at least 40 points for the final 19 minutes and 53 seconds of this game.
D'Antoni: "They smelled blood in the water and they killed us."
— Mike Bresnahan (@Mike_Bresnahan) March 7, 2014
After the game, injured Lakers star Kobe Bryant tried to put a positive spin on things via Twitter:
Misery = Motivation #thanku #urwelcome
— Kobe Bryant (@kobebryant) March 7, 2014
That's a hell of a lot of motivation, then.
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Dan Devine is an editor for Ball Don't Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter!
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