As Anthony Davis considered the possibility of the Lakers falling out of assured playoff seeding and into the play-in tournament, he said, “We don’t look at it as something bad. To be honest, we need a lot of games. We need games to get back accustomed to each other.”
That was Thursday night, following the Lakers 22-point shellacking at the hands of the Clippers. As part of that same answer, Davis said “obviously we don’t want to go that route” and called Friday’s game in Portland the “biggest game” remaining on the schedule by virtue of the teams being deadlocked in sixth place.
After the Lakers lost 106-101 to the Trail Blazers to fall into sole occupation of the seventh seed, a loss that Alex Caruso said left the Lakers locker room “a little gutted,” the question becomes: Which one is it?
Is the play-in, which the Lakers now seem destined for, something that could ultimately be a blessing in disguise? Or an added hurdle in the Lakers repeat bid that should be avoided at all costs?
“For me I’m unafraid of the play-in tournament with this team,” Lakers coach Frank Vogel answered when presented with that very question before the loss. “I feel like we can beat anybody, but we definitely want to finish in the top six. There’s just too many things that can happen in a one-game series: foul trouble, roll of an ankle, anything like that could pop up. So we definitely want to finish in the top six, it’s a high priority for us.”
Any advantage to be gained from extra games with LeBron James (if his ankle is healthy) and Dennis Schröder (if he’s back from the health and safety protocols) in a play-in, Vogel said, would be “marginal.”
Perhaps it’s more of a philosophical question than one that players and coaches in the thick of the fight should be burdened with.
But the Lakers played their way closer to not having much say in the matter on Friday, not only falling a game behind the Trail Blazers, but also handing them the tiebreaker in the season series.
Now, the Lakers only have five games remaining to find a way out of the play-in. James has only played in two of the Lakers last 25 games and the team has not said when he will return, although The Athletic’s Shams Charania reported the team has targeted either Tuesday against the Knicks or the next night against Houston.
Given the current state of the roster it’s hard to see how the Lakers can make up two games on Portland (or three on fifth-place Dallas) in just five games, regardless of when James returns. That would mean a likely matchup with Golden State to determine the seventh seed, with the loser playing the winner of the 9-10 matchup to sort out the eighth.
“This is the predicament that we’re in right now,” Kyle Kuzma said. “Whether we’re still trying to fight for that sixth or be in the play-in, we just got to keep in mind it’s all about trying to get healthy and compete right now, try to win games every time we’re out there. (If) the chips fall where they fall and we’re in the play-in, we have to play a No. 1 or 2 seed, then we’ll see how it goes.”
Just imagine at the start of this season debating whether the Lakers would be better off in a first round matchup with the Clippers or dropping into a sudden-death play-in to face either of the top two seeds in the West.
It was unthinkable. Even on April 17, Lakers forward Markieff Morris scoffed at the mention of the play-in, saying, “We’re not worried about a play-in. At all … That won’t involve us.”
Ten games later, with the Lakers losers in all but two of them, it’s difficult to find scenarios where the play-in won’t involve the Lakers, as a year’s worth of bad luck seems to have log-jammed at the back end of the regular season.
Even on Friday, an encouraging night in terms of effort and grit, including a 36-point performance from Davis and an inspired spot start at point guard by a hobbled Alex Caruso, the night was rife with the kinds of mistakes championship teams do not make.
The Lakers committed eight first quarter turnovers, at one point having more turnovers (7) than points (6). But the real issues came in the final minute, when the Lakers committed a series of mistakes that sunk their comeback.
After Davis blocked a shot by Jusuf Nurkic with the Trail Blazers leading by three, the Lakers came up empty on a four-on-three fast break when Kuzma missed an unguarded 3 off the front iron. Two possessions later, after Caruso sliced to the rim to again cut the lead to three, Caruso and Ben McLemore both tried to take a foul on CJ McCollum with 27 seconds left, despite the fact it was a one possession game and that there were only 17 seconds on the shot clock.
“We don’t want to take a foul there,” Vogel said, when asked about the play. “We want to play it out, try to get a stop and give ourselves a chance to win it with the ball on the last possession.”
The foul was assigned to McLemore even though the whistle did not blow until Caruso had stepped in and grabbed McCollum.
“Just pretty disappointed in myself, being blatantly honest,” Caruso said. “Being a point guard, one of the more vocal guys, one of the high I.Q. guys on the team right now with a couple of our leaders missing, our point guards missing. I was pretty disappointed in myself.”
Davis, who is the last man standing among the Lakers leaders, questioned the logic of that foul, as well as Kuzma’s decision-making on the 3-pointer. The fourth-year forward was trapped in one of the worst shooting games of his career, and the 3 that would have tied it dropped him to 0-for-6 on the night from the perimeter.
“Maybe Kuz could have gotten a two (then we’d be) down one. … because he was struggling,” Davis said. “But then again, I mean, he’s a shooter and it was a tough play in between. A guy who shoots the shit out of the ball, he didn’t shoot it well tonight, a wide-open look, it’s a good shot. A layup is probably the right play, but we’re living with him shooting the ball.”
It was a night that might have locked the Lakers into their playoff path. In the first year the league institutes a fully-formed play-in tournament, the defending champions will likely be among the teams navigating it.
There are silver linings to be found in that reality, from the Lakers getting more games under their belt to avoiding the Clippers in the first round. However, the realization that should be setting in now is not that falling on either side of the play-in line is a good outcome, but that both possibilities are indeed bad and illustrate how fractured this season has become.
“We can’t worry about that,” Vogel said in response to another question about the play-in. “You know, we’re just going to compete to win as many games as we can and wherever we land, we’re confident.”
As Anthony Davis considered the possibility of the Lakers falling out of assured playoff seeding and into the play-in tournament, he said, “We don’t look at it as something bad. To be honest, we need a lot of games. We need games to get back accustomed to each other.”
That was Thursday night, following the Lakers 22-point shellacking at the hands of the Clippers. As part of that same answer, Davis said “obviously we don’t want to go that route” and called Friday’s game in Portland the “biggest game” remaining on the schedule by virtue of the teams being deadlocked in sixth place.
After the Lakers lost 106-101 to the Trail Blazers to fall into sole occupation of the seventh seed, a loss that Alex Caruso said left the Lakers locker room “a little gutted,” the question becomes: Which one is it?
Is the play-in, which the Lakers now seem destined for, something that could ultimately be a blessing in disguise? Or an added hurdle in the Lakers repeat bid that should be avoided at all costs?
“For me I’m unafraid of the play-in tournament with this team,” Lakers coach Frank Vogel answered when presented with that very question before the loss. “I feel like we can beat anybody, but we definitely want to finish in the top six. There’s just too many things that can happen in a one-game series: foul trouble, roll of an ankle, anything like that could pop up. So we definitely want to finish in the top six, it’s a high priority for us.”
Any advantage to be gained from extra games with LeBron James (if his ankle is healthy) and Dennis Schröder (if he’s back from the health and safety protocols) in a play-in, Vogel said, would be “marginal.”
Perhaps it’s more of a philosophical question than one that players and coaches in the thick of the fight should be burdened with.
But the Lakers played their way closer to not having much say in the matter on Friday, not only falling a game behind the Trail Blazers, but also handing them the tiebreaker in the season series.
Now, the Lakers only have five games remaining to find a way out of the play-in. James has only played in two of the Lakers last 25 games and the team has not said when he will return, although The Athletic’s Shams Charania reported the team has targeted either Tuesday against the Knicks or the next night against Houston.
Given the current state of the roster it’s hard to see how the Lakers can make up two games on Portland (or three on fifth-place Dallas) in just five games, regardless of when James returns. That would mean a likely matchup with Golden State to determine the seventh seed, with the loser playing the winner of the 9-10 matchup to sort out the eighth.
“This is the predicament that we’re in right now,” Kyle Kuzma said. “Whether we’re still trying to fight for that sixth or be in the play-in, we just got to keep in mind it’s all about trying to get healthy and compete right now, try to win games every time we’re out there. (If) the chips fall where they fall and we’re in the play-in, we have to play a No. 1 or 2 seed, then we’ll see how it goes.”
Just imagine at the start of this season debating whether the Lakers would be better off in a first round matchup with the Clippers or dropping into a sudden-death play-in to face either of the top two seeds in the West.
It was unthinkable. Even on April 17, Lakers forward Markieff Morris scoffed at the mention of the play-in, saying, “We’re not worried about a play-in. At all … That won’t involve us.”
Ten games later, with the Lakers losers in all but two of them, it’s difficult to find scenarios where the play-in won’t involve the Lakers, as a year’s worth of bad luck seems to have log-jammed at the back end of the regular season.
Even on Friday, an encouraging night in terms of effort and grit, including a 36-point performance from Davis and an inspired spot start at point guard by a hobbled Alex Caruso, the night was rife with the kinds of mistakes championship teams do not make.
The Lakers committed eight first quarter turnovers, at one point having more turnovers (7) than points (6). But the real issues came in the final minute, when the Lakers committed a series of mistakes that sunk their comeback.
After Davis blocked a shot by Jusuf Nurkic with the Trail Blazers leading by three, the Lakers came up empty on a four-on-three fast break when Kuzma missed an unguarded 3 off the front iron. Two possessions later, after Caruso sliced to the rim to again cut the lead to three, Caruso and Ben McLemore both tried to take a foul on CJ McCollum with 27 seconds left, despite the fact it was a one possession game and that there were only 17 seconds on the shot clock.
“We don’t want to take a foul there,” Vogel said, when asked about the play. “We want to play it out, try to get a stop and give ourselves a chance to win it with the ball on the last possession.”
The foul was assigned to McLemore even though the whistle did not blow until Caruso had stepped in and grabbed McCollum.
“Just pretty disappointed in myself, being blatantly honest,” Caruso said. “Being a point guard, one of the more vocal guys, one of the high I.Q. guys on the team right now with a couple of our leaders missing, our point guards missing. I was pretty disappointed in myself.”
Davis, who is the last man standing among the Lakers leaders, questioned the logic of that foul, as well as Kuzma’s decision-making on the 3-pointer. The fourth-year forward was trapped in one of the worst shooting games of his career, and the 3 that would have tied it dropped him to 0-for-6 on the night from the perimeter.
“Maybe Kuz could have gotten a two (then we’d be) down one. … because he was struggling,” Davis said. “But then again, I mean, he’s a shooter and it was a tough play in between. A guy who shoots the shit out of the ball, he didn’t shoot it well tonight, a wide-open look, it’s a good shot. A layup is probably the right play, but we’re living with him shooting the ball.”
It was a night that might have locked the Lakers into their playoff path. In the first year the league institutes a fully-formed play-in tournament, the defending champions will likely be among the teams navigating it.
There are silver linings to be found in that reality, from the Lakers getting more games under their belt to avoiding the Clippers in the first round. However, the realization that should be setting in now is not that falling on either side of the play-in line is a good outcome, but that both possibilities are indeed bad and illustrate how fractured this season has become.
“We can’t worry about that,” Vogel said in response to another question about the play-in. “You know, we’re just going to compete to win as many games as we can and wherever we land, we’re confident.”
