LOS ANGELES — It might have been 3,000 miles away, but the All-Star Game in Orlando did little to change the narrative of this season for the two basketball teams that call Los Angeles home.
While Chris Paul was feeding passes to Blake Griffin for dunks, Kobe Bryant was getting popped in the nose and Andrew Bynum was mostly seated to rest his fragile knees.
For the Clippers, it was again all flash.
For the Lakers, it resembled another crash.
And yet, for two teams seemingly headed in opposite directions at a breakneck pace, they each reached the All-Star break with 20 victories. Now, after everybody has had a few days to take a deep breath, the surge toward the playoffs begins in this truncated, compressed season.
Or is it a sprint?
In the Western Conference, 3½ games separate the third-place Clippers from the 10th-place Timberwolves after Minnesota pulled another fourth-quarter stunner in LA on Tuesday night, rallying for a 109-97 win.
"I was telling the guys in the locker room today, now all the games are over," Paul said Monday night after the Clippers returned to practice. "Teams are going to start jockeying for position. Guys aren't going to be sitting out resting."
So even though Bryant, suffering from a broken nose and a concussion, is expected to visit a neurologist again Wednesday, nobody expects him to be sidelined Wednesday night when the Lakers get their crack at the Timberwolves. And certainly he'll be present Sunday, when a national TV audience will be looking in as the Lakers host Miami and Dwyane Wade, who busted Bryant's nose in the All-Star Game, and LeBron James, whom Bryant chided for not taking the last shot Sunday in the Western Conference's narrow victory.
Though the Lakers might be creaky and vulnerable on the road, they have one of the NBA's best defenses, they've lost but twice at home — both at the wire — and their twin towers of Pau Gasol and Bynum still are a matchup nightmare.
Of all the challenges that lie ahead for the Lakers and Clippers, the most significant revolve around the elements of time.
For the Clippers, it is the calendar — a grueling, road-heavy schedule that features 21 games in 33 days and nearly eight weeks before they'll have consecutive days off. For the Lakers, it is the ticking clock of the March 15 trade deadline, which will close the window on any opportunity to either remake their roster (Dwight Howard, Deron Williams) or simply provide a much-needed boost of energy, athleticism and (they hope) a few easy baskets.
The Clippers on Monday signed small forward Bobby Simmons, another move around the margins by general manager Neil Olshey. Simmons will either light a fire under slumping backup Ryan Gomes, a career 44.5 percent shooter who is shooting 33.7 percent this season, or replace him.
"We need our second unit to make some shots and give our first unit some rest," said Clippers coach Vinny Del Negro, whose entire team practiced together for the first time Monday. "(Simmons) is a good guy, a hard worker. We'll see how it comes together."
As Simmons, who was in the developmental league before joining the Clippers, finished running through some of the new offense with assistant coach Marc Iavaroni, he could not help but notice the difference in the surroundings from his previous tour with the Clippers, when he earned the 2005 Most Improved Player Award by averaging 16.4 points, 5.9 rebounds and 2.7 assists for a team that finished eight games out of a playoff spot.
"It's good to be back," Simmons said, before noting with a smile, "It's a lot different around here."
The Clippers have deepened their bench with free-agent forwards Reggie Evans and Kenyon Martin, adding much-needed rebounding help and post defense without eating into a roster that already was thinned by the trade for Paul and the season-ending Achilles tendon injury to Chauncey Billups.
The moves have helped the Clippers maintain the leg up they've had on the Lakers since NBA commissioner David Stern would not approve the trade of Paul to the Lakers, instead signing off several days later on the deal that sent him to the Clippers.
If the deal has helped make the Clippers the more interesting team, winning the Pacific Division might mean more than simply finishing ahead of the Lakers.
"It's important when you're a young team to try to get home court, especially having so many guys on our team that have never played in the playoffs," Paul said. "It would definitely be a huge advantage to try to get home-court advantage, at least through that first round."
If it happens to be against the Lakers, all the better.
