Hot Clippers return home, where the Pelicans are waiting.

After completing their yearly road trip to the Grammy Awards, the Los Angeles Clippers emerged victorious, finishing with a 6-1 record and taking the lead in the Western Conference.

With the biggest night in music behind them, the Clippers will meet the New Orleans Pelicans at home on Wednesday. Their bags have already been unpacked, but not their luggage.

Following Tuesday’s losses by Oklahoma City and Minnesota, Los Angeles now leads the West with a winning percentage of.694. With two games remaining against the 35-16 Thunder, Timberwolves, and Denver Nuggets, it is at 34-15.

“We had an incredible journey,” remarked Tyronn Lue, the coach of the Clippers. “We have a 6-1 record versus the opponents we faced on this trip. We understood going into it that this would be a difficult battle. But these folks deserve some credit. We persisted in playing, won some games early, and didn’t stop battling.

“And as I mentioned, it was a whole team effort. We must return home, put in serious defensive practice, and improve because we are stronger than that.

The trip came to an end on Monday with a 149-144 victory over the Atlanta Hawks, which demonstrated Lue’s defensive worries. However, the last game was also the second night of a back-to-back of a long trip.

“That’s just the key, knowing what we did wrong in these games but being happy that you did win,” said Clippers forward Kawhi Leonard, who scored 36 points in Monday’s victory. “We know we’ve got to be better, and there’s room for us to get better.”

Los Angeles is an NBA-best 26-5 since the start of December, making the prospect of even better play around a core of Leonard, Paul George and James Harden that much more daunting.

The Pelicans arrive at Los Angeles on a three-game winning streak and will provide a stern test for that Clippers defense while coming off a 138-100 home victory over the Toronto Raptors on Monday. It was New Orleans’ fifth-highest scoring game of the season, just two weeks removed from a 153-point game against the Utah Jazz.

On Monday, Brandon Ingram led New Orleans with a season-high 41 points and nine assists, while CJ McCollum chipped in with 20 points. 51 percent of the Pelicans’ shots came from the floor.

Ingram shot 8 of 11 from 3-point range and had no turnovers in 30 minutes of play, demonstrating his dominance. During a brief spurt in the third quarter, when the team shot 10 of 14 from beyond the arc, Ingram made five of his baskets.

“It was easy. We executed well, found the open shots, picked up the pace, and players set terrific ball screens,” Ingram said. “I thought that beginning in the first quarter, the starting five was doing things with purpose. Everything sort of went as planned.”

While Ingram has averaged 21.8 points in 46 games this season, Zion Williamson leads the team with an average of 22.1 points across 40 games. McCollum posts 19.2 points per contest and has played in 36 games.

“We know what everybody likes to do,” Ingram said of the trio. “I know what CJ likes to do, I know what (Williamson) likes to do. It’s more about — how can we create opportunities for that? How we can create space for that? How we can continue to just get to that. Let guys isolate and be in actions. Whatever it is. Just create ways to do it consistently.”