The Los Angeles Clippers may have fallen 125-122 in the fourth Battle of LA against the Los Angeles lakers on Friday night, but that doesn't mean they made it easy on their crosstown rivals.

The Clippers hung with the Lakers throughout the game, outscoring them in all but the first quarter, where the Lakers got out to an early 11 point advantage that ended up saving the game for them as the Clippers clawed their way back. 

Even when the Lakers led by 16 points at one point in the game, the Clippers were undeterred. They kept pace the entire game, even taking the lead themselves as times, and even as the Lakers worked toward an advantage again, the Clippers stayed within two throughout most of the fourth quarter.

A 10-0 run midway through the third made up some major ground for the Clippers and a 31 point performance by Kawhi Leonard and 26 point performance from Bennedict Mathurin off the bench did a lot of the heavy lifting for the Clippers.

Even as Leonard and John Collins left the game early with injuries and Mathurin fouled out, the Clippers kept fighting and fell by just three to a healthy Lakers team. 

That kind of fight speaks to the spiritual transformation that the Clippers have undergone since recovering from their struggles early in the season, and that fighting mentality is something that head coach Ty Lue is confident will persist through the end of the season.

"You saw it. That's who we are. This group, we are going to compete," Lue said (via The Sporting Tribune). "We're going to fight every night and that was not like a team that's trying to lose to me. We're going to scrap every night... The teams are going to play against us. They're going to be in for a dog fight every night."

The Clippers are 27-29 so far this season, and while that may be a losing record, it's far and beyond an improvement on the 6-21 start to the season they suffered. 

Even after a trade deadline that saw the exodus of both James Harden and Ivica Zubac, Lue is making it clear that while it seems that the Clippers are entering a rebuild, that doesn't mean they're going to roll over and let other teams beat them. 

Lue's lofty promise of making the Play-In tournament earlier this season when things seemed so dark still doesn't appear out of reach, and if he or his team have anything to say about it, the Clippers will still be a challenge to any team on their schedule this season.