Alexander: Could Lakers, Clippers meet in first round of playoffs?
Remember the good old days, when we all assumed that the road to the NBA Finals was destined to run through Staples Center?
Now, 14 months later, we might be looking at a first-round collision between the Lakers and Clippers. And that’s the best-case scenario.
It would be a fair fight in all likelihood. The teams play again Thursday night with the Clippers as the home team and both in similar stages of adjustment, trying to capture (or recapture) chemistry on the fly with less than two weeks left in the regular season.
The Clippers at least are assured that they’ll be in, and are battling Denver for the No. 3 seed while their bunkmates are desperately trying to stay out of the play-in round for the seventh-10th-place finishers in the Western Conference. They’re trying to work Kawhi Leonard and Patrick Beverley back into the mix, uncertain if Serge Ibaka will be part of it, and figuring out what they can expect from Rajon Rondo and DeMarcus Cousins (Memo to Clippers fans: Playoff Rondo really does exist.)
Theirs might be more a task of honing their approach and identity. Given the way the Clippers’ 2020 postseason ended, what takes place between the ears could be as consequential as any news that comes out of the trainer’s room.
“We just got to play hard as (expletive),” Beverley said after Tuesday night’s victory over Toronto. “That’s it. We gotta come out with a defensive mindset all the time and kind of try to find our identity, who we want to be every night. Of course, every game presents something different. But, you know, from the get-go to the end we have to be a defensive mindset team, whoever we’re playing.”
All-Star Paul George talked of honing the “approach,” and when asked to elaborate talked of aggressiveness. “I think we can be the team that, comes out there and … can intimidate teams just with our pressure, our intensity, our personnel, and just take teams right out from the jump,” he said.
Can the Clippers reach that point in two weeks or even come close to it? The general consensus comes down to two words: “Prove it.” Again, they’ve got the specter of the 2020 postseason to overcome, and maybe that will be a sufficient chip on their collective shoulder.
Meanwhile, the Lakers are still working to incorporate new additions Andre Drummond and Ben McLemore, still trying to determine where veteran center Marc Gasol fits six months in, and still trying to get Anthony Davis back up to speed after he missed two months. But in the end, everyone in basketball knows it comes down to No. 23. And the Lakers must consider that LeBron James not only might not be 100 percent by playoff time but might be compromised more than we know, after a setback with his ankle Sunday night against Toronto that kept him out of Monday’s Denver game.
He missed 20 consecutive games before his two-game return and won’t play Thursday night against the Clippers and is “day-to-day” after that, Coach Frank Vogel said Wednesday. That would include Friday night in Portland, which might be the most important game of the season if the Lakers are serious about avoiding the play-in round.
That’s terrifying enough, given that from the 7 and 8 spots, two bad games can send you home before the 16-team tournament even begins. For the record, from the moment LeBron went down against Atlanta on March 20, the Lakers have had losing streaks of four games once and three games twice, the most recent of which they snapped Monday night.
Even a No. 6 seed would mean a perilous playoff march. Since the current 16-team playoff format was created for the 1983-84 season, only one team lower than a No. 3 has won the NBA title: The 1994-95 Houston Rockets, a No. 6 seed in the West (and, like the current Lakers, defending champs). Those Rockets won 47 regular-season games but lost 11 of their last 18, struggling down the stretch after trading for Clyde Drexler in February. Then they won five elimination games in the first two rounds of the playoffs and went on to sweep Orlando and Shaquille O’Neal in the Finals.
But maybe all the other seasons should be discounted in handicapping this one, as strange as it has been in so many ways. Feel free to blame it on Commissioner Adam Silver for signing off on that ultra-quick turnaround between seasons, if you must, but note that it’s not just Los Angeles. A lot of teams are scrambling as the playoffs approach.
“Utah’s dealing with injuries,” Vogel said Wednesday. “Denver is dealing with injuries. The Clippers have guys coming back. Brooklyn, you know, obviously has guys – they haven’t seen their big three play together (much). You know, it just seems like there’s more teams that are in this type of adjustment period and trying to find cohesiveness than teams that are whole, you know. And whether it’s the shortened season or not, shortened offseason, you know, that’s impossible to tell.
“And it’s not really relevant. This is the situation we’re in. We’re going to make the best of it … We have enough to get the job done.”
At this stage, there are no other options.
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