With the Los Angeles Lakers and Golden State Warriors set to square off Wednesday night in the NBA Play-In Tournament, it could spell bad news for the Utah Jazz and Phoenix Suns down the road.
Whoever wins Wednesday’s game will become the No. 7 seed in the Western Conference and will face the No. 2 Suns, a talented but young team mostly lacking playoff experience — except for Chris Paul.
The loser of Wednesday’s game will face the winner of the 9/10 game between the Memphis Grizzlies and San Antonio Spurs, and have a chance to advance as the No. 8 seed against the top-seeded Jazz.
“I’m not going to be shocked with either team [the Lakers or Warriors] winning this game,” ESPN analyst Tim Legler said Monday on SportsCenter. “Ultimately, I think they’re both going to get in because whoever loses the game is going to beat the winner of Memphis and San Antonio, so ultimately you’re going to have both the Lakers and Warriors in it.
“And now you’re going to get them against a top of the West that certainly looks different than we thought it would going into the season with Utah and Phoenix up there. You look at the Lakers, they’re a team that just has to avoid getting knocked out early because they’ve had so much of their lineup interrupted this season with AD [groin] and LeBron [ankle], they’re just starting to find their feet together. If they can avoid getting knocked out in this play-in format, they’re going to get better each and every game. And now if you’re sitting there at the top of the West, man what bad luck to get a healthy Lakers team in the first round and a Warriors team red-hot with Steph Curry, a two-time MVP playing the best offensive basketball of his entire career.
“I think both of those teams can give Utah and Phoenix all they can handle, and in the case of the Lakers they’re going to be favored as a 7 or 8 to win that series which is going to be very rare when you get to the playoffs. But the Warriors also have a great shot of extending that first-round series if they get there against Utah or Phoenix.”
LeBron James and the defending champion Lakers are the second favorite behind the Brooklyn Nets to win the NBA title. The Jazz are the fourth favorite and the Suns are the seventh, per Caesars William Hill.
James is on record as not being a fan of the play-in.
“Whoever came up with that s*** needs to be fired,” James, who has been dealing with a sore right ankle, said earlier this month.
But the NBA instituted it to keep more teams involved in the playoff hunt and to cut down on tanking. So far, so good.
The league gets a marquee matchup Wednesday — even if it is at 10 p.m. ET — between James, a four-time NBA MVP, and Curry, a two-time league MVP who is among the favorites to win the award this season.
“We’re playing in my opinion the MVP of our league this year in Steph, so we gotta be prepared for everything they have,” James said of Curry.
“They got championship DNA as well. They’ve been there, they know what it takes and what it feels like to be in pressure games, so we’re going to be ready for that opportunity and for that pressure.”
And then the Jazz and Suns will have to be ready for the teams that move on.
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May 18, 2021 at 06:51AM
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The Lakers-Warriors Play-In Game Is Bad News For The Jazz And Suns - Forbes
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