LOS ANGELES - You know that expression -- you don't know whether to laugh or cry?
Go to the battle of Los Angeles' NBA teams and there's no question. You laugh with the Lakers. Cry with the Clippers.
Tuesday night the two teams opened their NBA seasons against each other, polar opposites that they are, following their scripts: Lakers 99, Clippers 92.
History tells us the Lakers eight-month forecast calls for sunny skies and a warm breeze at their backs all the way to June. The Clippers forecast looks like clouds and a 99 percent chance of a non-stop monsoon until it mercifully ends in April.
Before the game even began, it had a familiar feel. The Lakers basked in their championship ring ceremony, each member of the 2009 title team collecting a piece of jewelry so big you could put wheels on it and ride it home.
The Clippers stayed in their locker room, having to deal with something even more depressing than watching their fellow Staples Center tenants celebrate a 15th NBA championship.
Monday the Clips lost their prized No. 1 draft pick. Blake Griffin has a fractured kneecap that will keep him out of action for six weeks and help extend for many more years their reputation as a cursed basketball team.
"I don't believe in curses," said both Clippers coach Mike Dunleavy and Lakers coach Phil Jackson before the game.
Jackson added, "You make your own luck. Things have to be done the right way. Organizations win championships. They really do."
Easy for him to say. Tuesday he accepted his 10th ring as a coach. He also has one as a player, with the New York Knicks. Someone asked him before the game if he ever wore them.
He told a story about being hired in Chicago, before he became the NBA's most successful coach. Bulls general manager Jerry Krause insisted Jackson wear his New York championship ring, to impress the players who hadn't won anything, yet.
"The diamond fell out in a Bennigan's," Jackson said.
That's the kind of curse you'd expect to follow Jackson around. A diamond falls out of a championship ring.
Anyway, after the game Jackson said he thought the ring ceremony "dissipated" some of his team's energy, but that was disputed by center Andrew Bynum.
"Not at all," said Bynum, who had 26 points and 13 rebounds. "It hyped me up."
In any case, what remained a close game for three quarters disappeared in a Lakers' 18-4 run to open the fourth.
Dunleavy's consolation was that his team "played hard all the way through." His hope is that they "have the depth to get through" Griffin's injury until mid-December.
You can only wish them well, knowing full well that six weeks is plenty of time for something else to go horribly wrong.
Besides new rings, the Lakers also displayed their fancy new warm-up suits with 15 stars on the back, representing all of the franchise's championships.
At the other end of the floor, the Clips warmed up, too, the plain, red backs of their sweats also reflecting the number of their championships.
The NBA sure has a sense of irony -- opening its season matching the league's most glamorous team celebrating its treasure chest of successes against the most forlorn sports franchise in all the land. Laugh. Cry.
"New journey, same goal" read the T-shirts the Lakers passed out to their crowd. Until further notice, the Clippers are stuck with, "Same journey, new tears."
(Reach Gregg Patton at gpatton(at)PE.com.)
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)
columnMust credit The Press-Enterprise of Riverside, Calif.
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