5 NBA things to watch for on Christmas Day

1. Clippers vs. Lakers

The Clippers, in what feels like a severe case of “we’ve been here before”, are dealing with a Blake Griffin injury. He’ll be out four to six weeks this time after having arthroscopic knee surgery, meaning he’ll miss the Los Angeles showdown on Christmas.

While Griffin is out, the Clippers should have a simple objective: keep things running smoothly. It’d be unfair to expect them to be as good as they are at full strength without Griffin, but asking them to hold seems reasonable. In the past — namely last year — Doc Rivers adjusted by running everything around the very, very good Chris Paul/DeAndre Jordan pick-and-roll combo. Last year, while Griffin was out, Jordan shot 80 percent on attempts that came off a Paul pass per NBA.com. During that span, the Clippers also had the league’s sixth best offense — a pretty impressive feat considering who was out.

This isn’t to say that there won’t be issues, because there will be. Griffin is Jordan’s second most frequent set-up man this year and there isn’t anyone really built to step into that void directly. But the Clippers can make this work. Paul has been close/at ‘Point God’ levels for much of the season and, aside from a few bad stretches, the Clippers have been pretty good this year. While Griffin out, there objective is simple: beat the teams you’re supposed to, stave off teams like the Jazz and maybe catch the Rockets. The race for 3-7 in the West is somewhat surprisingly tight and a bad run without Griffin could send Los Angeles down the standings, forcing them to scramble as the playoffs loom.

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The Lakers are, frankly, a team the Clippers should beat. Weird losses happen, but the Clippers should really have advantages in most areas of the matchup. Under Luke Walton, these Lakers are fun and better, but they aren’t good. On Christmas, they are there to help us find out what life without Griffin will be like for the Clippers.