Lakers begin the Lonzo Ball era with lopsided loss to the Clippers
At the intersection of the city’s two great sports loves stood a man with one foot in each realm.
Magic Johnson waited in a tunnel painted purple and gold, his eyes fixated on a video board dangling from the ceiling of Staples Center playing Game 5 of the National League Championship Series.
He is the Lakers’ president of basketball operations and a minority owner of the Dodgers. His wish list for the day? A Lakers win and a Dodgers World Series berth.
He got one of them.
When Enrique Hernandez hit a grand slam during the third inning, Johnson began to dance up and down the tunnel. A few hours later, between the first and second quarters of the Lakers’ and Clippers’ season opener, a current ran through Staples Center. Fans assembled to watch the start of the Lonzo Ball era realized their hometown baseball team had just made it into the World Series for the first time since 1988. Johnson saw the final out on a television in his Staples Center suite and he started cheering and screaming and kissing his wife.
Then the Clippers beat the Lakers 108-92 behind 29 points and 12 rebounds from Blake Griffin and 14 points and 24 rebounds from DeAndre Jordan. The Lakers got double-digit scoring from Larry Nance Jr. (14), Jordan Clarkson (18), Brandon Ingram (12) and Brook Lopez, who led the team with 20 points.
Ball finished with three points, four assists and nine rebounds. It was the first game of an NBA career that the Lakers hope will lead to exactly the kind of delirium the Dodgers are providing for the city.
“All day I was sweating because of Lonzo Ball, and [now] I’m sweating because of the Dodgers, too,” Johnson said, delighted. “Right now, my shirt, I’m just drenched.”
Johnson’s fingerprints are much more strongly on the Lakers than the Dodgers. Ball was his pick. He sat on stage at the NBA draft lottery and shimmied next to Philadelphia big man Joel Embiid when the Lakers kept their pick. He met Ball’s family and got to know Ball’s father well enough to know he wanted them as part of his team.
So when the time came to decide where he’d be on Thursday night, Johnson struggled with the decision, but chose Ball’s debut.
The rookie arrived at Staples Center three hours before the game wearing a Dodgers jersey. Later he changed into his black Lakers warmups and sat in a courtside seat. His left arm hung casually over another seat as he looked up while waiting his turn for pregame warmups. He was watching the Dodgers as a camera crew from his family’s Facebook reality series hovered nearby.
In Johnson’s estimation, the expectations with which Ball enters the NBA exceed the ones impressed upon him back in 1979. And so all Johnson wanted for the rookie was a win. He didn’t care how Ball played, he just wanted him to get a career-opening win like he got in the first game of his career. That night in 1979, Johnson scored 26 points and then leaped into Kareem Abdul Jabbar’s arms to celebrate the win.
It didn’t happen for Ball’s debut. Against a more complete Clippers team, that has now won 19 of its last 21 games against the Lakers, the Lakers struggled.
Clippers point guard Patrick Beverley had promised to pester Ball in his debut, and the Lakers all knew it was coming. Beverley got physical with Ball right from the start, once shoving him at midcourt and later fouling him from behind. As the Lakers home crowd booed Beverley, the feisty guard held up one finger and shouted “first team!” a reference to his status as a first-team All-Defensive player.
Ball played 29:21 in his first game since suffering an ankle injury on Oct. 2. He missed three shots in the first quarter before hitting a three-pointer in the second quarter for his first NBA points.
All the while, Johnson oscillated between delight at the Dodgers’ success and frustration at lost rebounds and missed defensive assignments.
The last time the Dodgers were in the World Series, the Lakers were a championship caliber team, too, with Johnson as their point guard.
“One thing about L.A., if you win, they embrace you,” Johnson said. “That’s what it’s about.”
Johnson was a part of that embrace returning to the Dodgers. The Lakers are far removed from their championship years. But Johnson’s hope is that Thursday marked the start of an era when it will return to the Lakers, too.
Follow Tania Ganguli on Twitter @taniaganguli
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