Clippers Face Off With Dallas Mavericks In First-Round Of NBA Playoffs
LOS ANGELES (CBSLA) — The Clippers will open their first-round NBA playoff series against the Dallas Mavericks Monday night.
The Clippers enter the playoffs with a 30% chance chance of winning the NBA championship, according to FiveThirtyEight.com. The Milwaukee Bucks have the second-best chance at 22%, a percentage point ahead of the Los Angeles Lakers.
The Clippers have never won an NBA championship or reached the Western Conference finals. If they win their first two playoff series, they could face off with their hometown rivals, the top-seeded Lakers in the Western Conference finals if they also win their first two series. The two LA teams have never faced off in the post-season.
This season is the eighth time in the last nine seasons the Clippers have reached the playoffs, and this will be the first season with forward Kawhi Leonard and guard Paul George, both of whom were acquired in the off-season and are Southern California natives. Leonard played high school basketball at Canyon Springs High School in Moreno Valley and Martin Luther King High School in Riverside, and George played at Knight High School in Palmdale.
The entire NBA postseason is being played in a so-called bubble at Disney World in Florida without spectators due to the coronavirus pandemic.
(© Copyright 2020 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. City News Service contributed to this report.)
