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The Fighting Temeraire Tugged To Her Last Berth To Be Broken Up, J.M.W. Turner

Look, this season hasn’t been easy for the Lakers. LeBron James missed 20 games with an ankle injury. Anthony Davis missed 30 games with an Achilles injury. Just as the two returned to the lineup for the stretch run, Dennis Schroder — the team’s clear third best player this season — went out due to COVID-19 protocols. Andre Drummond has not meshed well — he’s been one of the league’s least impactful buyout signings. Montrezl Harrell’s fit has been a disappointment.

All that said and acknowledged, this is an absolutely hilarious statement after L.A. lost to the lowly Kings and injury-depleted Raptors over the weekend to fall into a three-way tie for the No. 5 seed with the Mavericks and Blazers.

Dave McMenamin @mcten

LeBron James on the play-in tournament: "Whoever came up with that s--- needs to be fired"

May 3rd 2021

1,400 Retweets11,918 Likes

This is the same flavor of whinging Mark Cuban and the Mavericks presented when they seemed destined for the play-in tournament. That’s right, the play-in sounds like a great idea unless you’re in line to participate. Then the chance for pre-playoff elimination by a hot, lesser team sounds awful. C’est la vie, my friends. C’est la freaking vie.

LeBron left the Raptors’ loss midway through the fourth due to ankle soreness. It’s not clear whether he aggravated his injury; the Lakers didn’t really look like they were going to win that game anyway, so it could have been precautionary. It remains to be seen whether he’ll play in a crucial game and potential first-round preview Monday against the Nuggets on national TV. As you’ll see below, the Lakers need as many hands on deck as possible for the next two weeks.

But really, the Lakers have only themselves to blame. There is never an excuse to lose to the Kings without De’Aaron Fox, as they did on Friday with Tyrese Haliburton and Richaun Holmes lighting them up. In fairness to the Lakers, the Kings did the same thing to the Mavericks on Sunday to keep L.A. and Dallas tied. Except on Sunday it wasn’t Hali and Holmes, it was Marvin Bagley and Delon Wright. Dallas has now lost thrice to the Kings in the last 15 days. The Mavs are 6-0 in that stretch against everyone else (including two wins over the Lakers). And the Kings beat them three times.

You might find a way to be more sympathetic to the Lakers and Mavericks’ annoyance at the play-in if they’d do their jobs and beat bad teams in the closing weeks of the season. Alas.

Here’s the situation for these three teams — Mavericks, Lakers and the Blazers, who had a SPECTACULAR weekend beating the Nets and Celtics to make this a three-way dance, sorry for highlighting the other teams’ failures instead of reading from the Book of Dame — with eight games left.

• All three are tied at 36-28.

• One of the three teams will be in the play-in tournament, facing the Grizzlies, Warriors or Spurs in the first game and, if they lose, facing another one of those teams with elimination on the line.

• The other two teams will face the scorching hot Nuggets or powerful Clippers in the first round. Should the play-in contestant survive, they’ll play the Jazz or Suns in the first round. There are no great scenarios here.

• Dallas owns the tiebreaker over the Lakers. Portland owns the tiebreaker over Dallas. The Blazers/Lakers tiebreaker will be decided on Friday in a head-to-head battle.

• Here’s a tiebreaker wrinkle! If the season ends with a three-way tie, the Blazers’ head-to-head tiebreaker against Dallas doesn’t matter because the Mavericks will win the Southwest Division. So if L.A. beat the Blazers on Friday and the three teams finish the season tied, Dallas and L.A. get the No. 5 and 6 spots respectively and the Blazers go to the play-in despite winning two out of three games against the Mavericks.

• If it’s a two-way tie between Dallas and Portland with the Lakers a game ahead in the standings, the Blazers get No. 6 and the Mavs go to the play-in despite winning the Southwest.

• Here are the Lakers’ games remaining: Nuggets (ha), Clippers (ha ha), Blazers, Suns (ha ha ha), Knicks (oh boy), Rockets, Pacers, Pelicans. Brutal.

• Here are the Mavericks’ games remaining: Heat, Nets (yikes), Cavaliers, Cavaliers, Grizzlies, Pelicans, Raptors, Timberwolves. Not exactly a gauntlet.

• Here are the Blazers’ games remaining: Hawks (ka-kaw), Cavaliers, Lakers, Spurs, Rockets, Jazz (oof), Suns (double oof), Nuggets (triple oof).

Without the play-in, these games would matter … in a way, depending on which match-up this teams wanted in the first-round, though it’d be hard to orchestrate that given that none of these three teams are good enough to orchestrate much of anything right now and the Clippers — who the team you’d presume these teams most want to avoid — are now the No. 4 seed.

With the play-in, these games are incredibly important and it’s going to be a blast to follow this through.

Whoever came up with that s—t should get a raise.

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Scores

Friday

Hawks 104, Sixers 126

Spurs 140, Celtics 143 — One of the greatest individual performances in the NBA over the last several years. Boston trailed by as many as 32 and got booed going into halftime by the few thousand fans allowed into the arena. Jayson Tatum had it going in the first half, but the rest of the C’s didn’t. But they sure as hell got it going, and Tatum exploded for a new career high 60 points — 31 of them in the fourth quarter and overtime.

Wizards 122, Cavaliers 93

Blazers 128, Nets 109

Magic 75, Grizzlies 92

Bucks 108, Bulls 98

Jazz 100, Suns 121 — Utah was without Donovan Mitchell and Mike Conley, so it’s same story we’ve been telling of late: the Phoenix Suns can only face the players that line up across from them, and they keep beating them over and over. Mikal Bridges was especially good in this one to help Phoenix take over the No. 1 seed.

This crossover had me out of my seat when I watched it in real-time.

Bleacher Report @BleacherReport

This angle of Devin Booker crossing Gobert is even better 🥶 (via @Suns)

May 1st 2021

5,753 Retweets34,360 Likes

Kings 110, Lakers 106

Saturday

Pistons 94, Hornets 107 — LaMelo Ball is back!

Charlotte Hornets @hornets

HE’S BAAAAAACCCCCKKKK!! 🕺🛸 @MELOD1P | #AllFly

May 1st 2021

498 Retweets2,416 Likes

Warriors 113, Rockets 87

Bulls 97, Hawks 108

Heat 124, Cavaliers 107

Grizzlies 111, Magic 112 — Cole Anthony called game. Again.

NBA @NBA

COLE ANTHONY WITH 0.1 LEFT TO WIN IT FOR ORLANDO! #MagicTogether

May 2nd 2021

328 Retweets2,349 Likes

Pelicans 140, Timberwolves 136 — Minnesota doesn’t exactly have much rim protection, but Zion Williamson going to the rim over and over and over again is just so delightful and effective.

Pacers 152, Thunder 95 — Worst home loss in NBA history. Moses Brown shot 7/9; the rest of the Thunder starting five shot 10/49. Doug McDermott with 31-1-1, like a true hero.

Wizards 124, Mavericks 125 — Luka Doncic’s 20th assist. Dorian Finney-Smith is so important to Dallas.

NBA TV @NBATV

LUKA TO DORIAN FINNEY-SMITH FOR THE WIN 😱

May 2nd 2021

293 Retweets1,784 Likes

Raptors 102, Jazz 106

Nuggets 110, Clippers 104 — Really good game with Kawhi Leonard back in action. Denver showed some amazing resilience down the stretch despite Rajon Rondo and DeMarcus Cousins rekindling some old magic. The Nuggets are the hottest team in the league without Jamal Murray, Monte Morris or Will Barton. I can’t get this Nikola Jokic pass out of my head.

Jackson Frank @jackfrank_jjf

Nikola Jokic no-look skip pass right to Facu's shooting pocket. Unreal.

May 2nd 2021

13 Retweets116 Likes

Sunday

Nets 114, Bucks 117 — Helluva game. Giannis Antetokounmpo and Kevin Durant brought their flamethrowers. Khris Middleton had a great fourth quarter. Kyrie Irving didn’t really have it, but still had some jaw-dropping plays. Bryn Forbes, Landry Shamet, good and spicy on both counts. Blake Griffin prying open the jaws of Father Time.

Blazers 129, Celtics 119

Heat 121, Hornets 111

Kings 111, Mavericks 99 — Marvin Bagley!

Knicks 122, Rockets 97

Suns 123, Thunder 120

Sixers 113, Spurs 111 — Ben Simmons game winner to take over the No. 1 seed. TWIST! It was a tip-in.

SportsCenter @SportsCenter

BEN SIMMONS TIPS IT IN AT THE BUZZER FOR THE WIN‼️

May 3rd 2021

268 Retweets2,577 Likes

Raptors 121, Lakers 114 — Kyle Lowry and Pascal Siakam both had 30-point double-doubles. Adding injury to insult, LeBron left with ankle soreness midway through the fourth. Brutal weekend for the Lakers given LeBron’s return.

League Pass Cupdate

The Hornets won their weekend game to stay alive. Charlotte has three more games this week: they need to sweep them to stay alive.

Schedule

Eight games, including the Warriors-Pelicans Marvel broadcast on ESPN2. It’s so weird that this is on a Monday night. The Warriors are good for ratings. Zion Williamson is someone the NBA wants everyone to love and watch. Warriors vs. Pelicans happens to be a Monday. I get it. But this is nothing like the hype the NFL built for their Nickelodeon game.

Magic at Pistons, 7 🏆
Pacers at Wizards, 7
Warriors at Pelicans, 7:30, ESPN/ESPN2
Blazers at Hawks, 8
Sixers at Bulls, 9
Knicks at Grizzlies, 9
Spurs at Jazz, 10
Nuggets at Lakers, 10, ESPN

We’re running up against the email size limit, so we’ll have some links tomorrow. Be excellent to each other.