Clippers and Grizzlies play another big game

Here they go again, the Clippers and Memphis Grizzlies going after each other once more in a meaningful regular-season game -- even if it is just one of 82.

The Thursday night game is significant because of the Clippers and Grizzlies’ history and because of the contempt they have developed for each other.

For the Clippers, they return to FedEx Forum for the first time since the Grizzlies eliminated them from the first round of the Western Conference playoffs in May.

The Clippers won the first two games in that series but lost the next four.

It was the second consecutive year the Clippers and Grizzlies had met in a first-round playoff series. The Clippers beat the Grizzlies in seven games in 2012.

Earlier this season, the Grizzlies beat the Clippers at Staples Center.

This game, however, could be different. Memphis won’t have center Marc Gasol (left knee injury) and power forward Zach Randolph is questionable because of a toe injury.

But the game will take a serious tone for the Clippers because they lost the first game in their seven-game trip at Atlanta Wednesday night and because the Clippers have now lost five consecutive games to the Grizzlies.

“It’s an important game to us,” Blake Griffin said. “There’s the fact that we’ve dropped two in a row now. It’s against a good team in the West. All those things. So, it’s a big game for us.”

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