Out of Lakers’ arena, Clippers finally host crosstown rivals: ‘Felt like home’

INGLEWOOD, Calif. — With a little more than three minutes left in the first half on Sunday night, Los Angeles Lakers star LeBron James stepped to the free throw line, as he’s done thousands of times in his NBA career. The Lakers had the coziest road games in the league; even when they “visited” the Clippers, it felt like a Lakers arena dressed up in Clippers colors. “It’s where it all started for me,” Lue said of Inglewood, where the Clippers currently play and where the Lakers played when Lue was a rookie in the 1998-99 NBA season, the final one for the Lakers at the Forum. The rivalry got closer in 1984, when the Clippers left San Diego for Los Angeles and played at the Lakers’ old home at the Sports Arena. First it was LA over San Diego, and then the Forum over the L.A. Sports Arena, then the feeling they were ‘letting’ the Clippers be a third-ranking tenant in ‘their’ Staples Center home for 25 years.” But now, the Clippers have broken from the history of sharing an arena with the Lakers or occupying their former buildings, even if Intuit Dome is in an old Lakers neighborhood.