L.A. restaurant takes out newspaper ad to congratulate Lakers on playoff run they didn't make

The Los Angeles Clippers fought hard through internal turmoil and external competition over the past few weeks after earning the No. 3 seed in the Western Conference, but ultimately came up short, bowing out to reigning NBA Most Valuable Player Kevin Durant and the Oklahoma City Thunder in a six-game second-round slugfest. It wasn't the ending that Doc Rivers, Chris Paul, Blake Griffin or the rest of the Clippers and their fans hoped for, but it was still arguably the most successful season in franchise history, and one well worth celebrating for the locals who support their city's sporting concerns.

Like, for example, the proprietors of Santa Monica restaurant The Upper West, who took it upon themselves to take out an ad in the Los Angeles Times' sports section to laud the hometown team:

Unfortunately, they picked the wrong hometown team. (The Los Angeles Lakers, as you might have heard, didn't do so hot this year.)

Oh, well. I guess that can happen when you're "wholly focused on food" and have "culinary tunnel vision." Given that branding, and given the fact that the restaurant's still promoting this ad via multiple social media channels, it's possible (and perhaps even likely) that this was the gag from the start rather than the brand of "too late for the printer" mistake that we've seen made elsewhere recently. If that's the case, you'd figure that the folks at The Upper West will have angry Lakers fans on their hands rather than angry Clippers fans, which is the opposite of the way I think I'd want things if I was a business owner in Los Angeles. Then again, the fans are probably the least of The Upper West's concerns; just think about the metric ton of venomous hashtags Kobe Bryant's about to unleash on them.

In conclusion: It remains very weird that the Clippers won 30 more games than the Lakers did, making this sort of mistake/joke possible. The good news, Lakers fans, is that it's all about to turn around. Big Dun's about to get the band back together!

Hat-tip to @LALocalOne.

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Dan Devine

is an editor for Ball Don't Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at devine@yahoo-inc.com or follow him on Twitter!

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