The NBA play-in tournament got underway on Tuesday, with Atlanta Hawks confound Heat Miami on the road in game 7-8 of the Eastern Conference, and Los Angeles Lakers crushed an overtime victory last time Minnesota Timberwolves in the game Western Conference 7-8.
With the win, Atlanta takes the seventh seed East and will face the second seed Boston Celtics in the first round. Miami will host the winner on Friday Chicago And Torontowith the eighth seed of the East.
Similarly, the Lakers won the seventh seed in the West and will face the second seed Grizzly Memphis in the first round. Minnesota will host the winner on Friday New Orleans And Oklahoma Citywith the eighth seed of the West.
This is the FOX Sports NBA reporter by Melissa Rohlin Lessons learned from the Lakers-Wolves:
It’s not pretty, but the Lakers made it.
After opening the season with a score of 2-10. After stepping on the water in 13th place ahead of the trading deadline. After it looked like they would be relegated in early April for most of the season, the Lakers defied the odds, completing their revival on Tuesday.
It happened with the victory in overtime 108-102 first Minnesota Timberwolves in the play-in tournament in which the Lakers won the seventh seed and a place in the knockout stages against the second seed. Memphis Grizzlies.
“We had a 2-10 lead, the analyst said we had a 0.3% chance of going through the post-season,” said. LeBron James, who finished with 30 points, 10 rebounds and six assists in 45 minutes. “So all you’re asking for is a chance, I guess. For us to turn our season around and give ourselves a chance to compete for the Larry O’Brien trophy? That’s all you got. may request.”
Like much of the Lakers’ season, Tuesday’s game was a rollercoaster ride.
Should have been more comfortable when the Timberwolves weren’t there Rudy Gobert And Jaden McDanielsafter the ex threw a punch at a teammate Kyle Anderson and the latter threw a punch to the wall in Sunday’s win over New Orleans in their regular season finale.
However, the short-handed Timberwolves were in control for most of the match. They scored 60 points after halftime. In the third quarter, they led by 15 points.
However, the Lakers refused to wave the white flag and took their chance as soon as it presented itself.
In the fourth round, the Timberwolves turned ice cold, scoring just 12 points from three to 15. The Lakers found their way back, with Dennis Schroder hit a 3-pointer with 1.4 seconds left to give the Lakers a 98-95 lead.
Anthony Davishowever, then make a mistake Mike Conley when he tried to throw a 3-pointer with 0.1 seconds left — and Conley took all three free throws to send the game into extra time. (Soon, “Trade AD” became trending on Twitter.
After the game, Davis clarified that The town of Karl-Anthony was setting up a monitor for Conley, and he called “switch,” but then he worried that James couldn’t hear him. Davis said he jumped to try to get out of Conley’s way, but Conley cut the whistle.
“Obviously, I said [James]”I’m bad,” said Davis, who had 24 on 10 to 19, 15 rebounds and three saves. “I said to the team, ‘My fault.’ And it just goes back to our next play mentality that the coach is always talking about and we talk about it as a team. What happened, happened. Let’s finish five minutes. this last and win.”
The Lakers went on to beat the Timberwolves 10-4 in extra time to prevent them from playing a win-lose play-in on Friday for the eighth seed against either Oklahoma City or New Orleans.
In many ways, Tuesday’s game was a microcosm of their season.
They came down. They have been calculated. But somehow they persisted.
“You have to look ahead and move forward,” said Lakers coach Darvin Ham. “That’s our mantra, which has represented us throughout the season. Just try to move forward and not constantly blame a problem or problem or what happened. Just keep trying to find solutions so we don’t make the same mistake twice. We were able to pull us together.”
Interestingly, not too long ago, the Lakers seemed to be heading for another embarrassing season. On the field, they are sporadic. And off it, their dressing room feels toxic.
They decided to make some big changes.
Before the transaction deadline, they process Russell Westbrook and Patrick Beverly, among others, while acquiring six new players. Suddenly they have shooters. They have depth. And their dressing room feels lighter.
After the All-Star break, even though James missed 13 games in a row, the Lakers won 16 of their last 23 to finish above 0.500 (43-39.).
For the Lakers, it was an incredible turning point.
During the All-Streak break, James called that period “23 of the most important games of my career in a regular season.”
That is a strong statement.
James played 20 seasons, reaching the NBA Finals for 10 seasons. This is the most important paragraph?
This is for sure: He doesn’t want to miss out for the second time in a row after the season.
Now, anything can happen.
No one wants to face James and Davis in the knockout stages, the duo won the championship together in 2020. And now they will have a 4-day rest before Game 1 on Sunday in Memphis.
The Lakers have proven once again this season that adversity doesn’t derail them.
And that is a difficult prospect for their opponents.
“You go through that process and once you get to the bottom of things so everyone is healthy, playing to the rhythms that we are playing at and at the level that we are defending as we enter the most important moment in the game. years, you couldn’t ask for a better situation,” Ham said.
This is FOX Sports’ NBA analyst Ric Bucher’s Taken from the Hawks’ win:
With one of the NBA’s most anemic errors, the Heat can’t afford to miss Tuesday’s play-in games against the Hawks. Their strong point is an eighth-class defense built on forcing turns and not giving up on counter-attacks.
That’s why Heat is feeling pretty sick right now. Because they did everything they couldn’t do against the Hawks, which resulted in a nearly direct 116-105 loss, which meant they had to beat the winner of today’s Chicago-Toronto play-in. Wednesday to raise hopes after the season. .
Although the Heat closed within five in the second half, thanks by Kyle Lowry top of the game with 33 points coming off the bench, their fate could have been predestined in the first half as they missed five shots in the box and let the Hawks win eight counter-attacks – This is due to a Heat team conceding 8.9 league-lowest offensive table in the regular season. The Hawks finished with a total of 22 counterattacks; The Heat finished missing 7 of the 12 shots on the edge.
The worst part: The stars of The Heat, Jimmy the butler And Bam Adebayo, responsible for most self-inflicted damages. Butler won 6–19.9, 9 of his 13 misses had at least one foot in the paint, 5 of which were close to the edge. Adebayo played 41 minutes and had 9 rebounds, while Atlanta Clint Capela caught 21, eight of his shots from attack including one where he simply stretched past Adebayo to steal the ball.
Then again, the Heat played for most of the night with a super-small starting line-up consisting of 6-foot-7 Butler in the forward position alongside Adebayo in the center and 6-foot-5. Tyler Herro6-foot-5 Max Strus and 6-foot-3 Gabe Vincent on the circumference. Their two main substitutes: 6-foot-tall Lowry, who has been accused of punching Capela, and 6-foot-5 Caleb Martin. The Heat are just the other big boys, Kevin love And cody zellerplayed a total of seven minutes.
Ric Bucher is an NBA writer for FOX Sports. He has previously written for Bleacher Report, ESPN The Magazine and The Washington Post and has written two books, “Rebound,” about NBA forward Brian Grant’s battle with young-onset Parkinson’s disease, and “Yao: A Life In Two Worlds.” He also has a daily podcast, “On The Ball with Ric Bucher.” Follow him on Twitter @Ric Bucher.
Melissa Rohlin is an NBA writer for FOX Sports. She has previously covered the tournament for Sports Illustrated, the Los Angeles Times, Bay Area News Group and the San Antonio Express-News. Follow her on Twitter @melissarohlin.
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