LA Clippers vs. Golden State Warriors

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Two days before Christmas with the team from up the coast in town is a better Wednesday than anybody has any right to expect. The city has half emptied, the freeways briefly behave, and the people still here are in a conspicuously good mood about it. Golden State visiting brings a travelling support that drives rather than flies and turns up in numbers that make the building noticeably less one-sided than usual - which, in a room designed specifically to be hostile to visitors, produces a genuine contest in the stands as well as on the floor. Late December also means rosters are settled and teams have stopped experimenting. Go on the last ordinary night of the year, when everything still works and nothing is shut. One practical note - the twenty-third is the last night the places around the building keep normal hours, so dinner afterwards is genuinely possible rather than theoretical.