LOS ANGELES – LeBron James will be out to extend his 21st National Basketball Association (NBA) campaign on April 16 (April 17, Singapore time), when his Los Angeles Lakers open the NBA play-in tournament against the “extremely ready” New Orleans Pelicans.
The winners will book a play-off meeting with the Denver Nuggets, the reigning champions and Western Conference second seeds.
The seventh-seeded Lakers closed the regular season with a dominant 124-108 victory over eighth seeds Pelicans on April 14, and James said that his team cannot afford a let-down against a New Orleans team eager to turn the tables.
“They’re going to be extremely ready for us, and we have to come in with the same sense of urgency,” said the veteran, who at 39 remains a formidable force in the league.
“Tuesday’s game is going to be extremely hard, extremely difficult, extremely physical.
“I’ve always known that, when you play a play-off series – and I look at this like a two-game play-off series – if you win that first game, a team has multiple days to kind of sit on that feeling, or sit with that taste in their mouth of defeat.”
In that game over the weekend, James posted a triple-double and spearheaded the Lakers’ defensive effort on Pelicans big man Zion Williamson.
“He’s a beast,” he said of Williamson, who is trying to lead New Orleans to the play-offs for the first time since 2022.
The Lakers might be concerned with the status of their own star Anthony Davis, who hobbled out in the final minutes of the April 14 win, saying his back “locked up” after he was pushed.
The losing team will get one more chance to reach the play-offs.
They will take on the winners of the April 16 game between the ninth-seeded Sacramento Kings and 10th-placed Golden State Warriors for a first-round meeting with Western Conference top seeds Oklahoma City.
Last season, the Lakers came through the play-in to reach the Western Conference Finals, where they were swept by Nikola Jokic and the Nuggets.
The Miami Heat did even better out of the play-in, earning the eighth seed in the East and reaching the NBA Finals, where they also succumbed to Denver.
The Heat will be trying to retrace that path when they travel to Philadelphia on April 17 to play the 76ers – the winners booking a first-round meeting with Eastern Conference second seeds the New York Knicks.
“We’ve had some great battles with (Miami),” 76ers coach Nick Nurse said. “I always expect that versus them.”
Nurse was confident that reigning NBA Most Valuable Player Joel Embiid, who sat out the final game of the regular season to rest his surgically repaired knee, would be “ready to go” against Miami.
The Sixers are 31-8 with Embiid playing this season.
The losers of that game will play the winners of the April 17 Atlanta-Chicago contest for the eighth and final play-off berth in the East – and a first-round meeting with the top-seeded Boston Celtics.
While the attention on April 16 will largely be on the Lakers, the Warriors and Kings will also be battling it out.
The teams have split their four meetings this season, including the Warriors’ one-point loss in Sacramento in November in a game they had led by 24. The last three regular-season games between the Warriors and Kings were decided by one point.
“You can’t be intimidated by what’s in front of you, you’ve just got to embrace it,” Warriors sharpshooter Klay Thompson said. “It’s exciting – we’ve got a great shot to win in Sac, and then don’t look ahead, just try to take care of business in Sacramento.”
Golden State coach Steve Kerr believes his team can overcome the Kings and perhaps go all the way.
“We have a really good connection on this team, good chemistry, guys pulling for each other. So I’ve got a good feeling about what’s ahead. We still have a chance to do something special,” he said.
AFP, REUTERS
