Preview: Clippers vs. Golden State Warriors

The Clippers and the Warriors, the only undefeated teams in the Western Conference, will play at Oakland’s Oracle Arena on Wednesday at 7:30 p.m.

“They’re the world champions, and we want to be that,” Clippers Coach Doc Rivers said of the Warriors at shoot-around Wednesday. “They don’t want us to be. So it’s always a little bit more to the game.”

That’s only part of the story, though.

The teams have a chippy history that has included hard fouls, accusations of Blake Griffin flopping, a scuffle at the end of their Christmas Day game in 2013, and the Clippers refusing to go to chapel with the Warriors on Halloween 2013. The Clippers knocked the Warriors out of the playoffs in a hard-fought, seven-game, first-round playoff series in 2014. This season, Rivers and Klay Thompson have exchanged barbs, after Thompson took offense to Rivers saying there was luck involved in the Warriors championship-winning run last season.

Rivers said the teams’ rivalry has taken on a whole new momentum nowadays.

“My first year, I was surprised that this was a rivalry,” Rivers said. “I even made that comment at that time, neither team had won a playoff series. I was like, ‘How the hell is this a rivalry?’ But now it’s becoming one because they’re the world champions. They made it by winning it, to me.”

The Clippers have started 4-0 for the first time since the 2007-08 season. The Warriors have won their four games by an average of 25 points, including a 50-point win over the Memphis Grizzlies on Monday.

Said Rivers after Monday’s win over the Phoenix Suns: “Listen, you’re both as good as your record,” Rivers said. “They’re undefeated and we’re undefeated. No matter how many points you win by, the records are the same.”

Twitter: @melissarohlin