SPORTS DIGEST: Lakers, Clippers clinch berths in Play-in Tournament

By Don Wanlass

Contributing Writer

With three games remaining in the NBA regular season, the Lakers and Clippers are tied for sixth place in the Western Conference. 

Going into their game against each other April 5, both teams have clinched berths in the NBA’s Play-in Tournament, guaranteeing them at least one postseason game this year.

After the Clippers, the Lakers close the season with two home games against the Phoenix Suns April 7 and the Utah Jazz April 9. 

The Clippers close out with a home game against the Portland Trailblazers April 8 and a road game against Phoenix April 9.

But the two local teams are heading in opposite directions as the season comes to a close. The Lakers have won seven of their last eight games. The Clippers have lost two in a row and four of their last seven.

The Lakers are relatively healthy with LeBron James back in the lineup. The Clippers are still trying to adjust to Paul George being out of the lineup with a knee injury. 

Both teams have high hopes for the playoffs, but the Lakers have the best shot of the two local teams of putting together a good playoff run, unless George bounces back quicker than expected. Even then, the Lakers probably are not going to win an NBA Championship this year. 

Why? The three best teams in the league are all in the Eastern Conference: Milwaukee, Boston and Philadelphia.

The Denver Nuggets have been the best team in the Western Conference all season, but no one expects them to come out of the West to face whoever survives the East.

Golden State, Phoenix and the Lakers will all give the Nuggets more than they can handle in a seven-game playoff series.

The Lakers are jelling at the right time. Their two stars, James and Anthony Davis, are playing as well together now as they did in the bubble in 2020, when they won a title.

James now trusts most of his supporting cast of teammates and the roster has improved considerably since the trade deadline, when the Lakers added D’Angelo Russell, Malik Beasley, Jarred Vanderbilt and Rui Hachimura, while subtracting Russell Westbrook.

Davis is starting to be the dominant force he was in the Lakers’ 2020 title run. In the last nine games he is averaging more than 28 points and 11 rebounds a game, and also doing a solid job of defending the middle on defense. 

Austin Reaves is growing into his role now that coach Darrin Ham has inserted him into the starting lineup. Ham made the move after Reaves scored a career-high 35 points off the bench March 19 against Orlando.

Since then, Reaves is averaging more than 18 points and almost seven assists a game and the Lakers have gone 6-1 in those seven games.

The moves that general manager Rob Pelinka made at the deadline cannot be ignored.

The Lakers became a better shooting team with the addition of Russell and Beasley and a better defensive and rebounding team with the addition of Vanderbilt and Hachimura. They are also a deeper team. 

Lonnie Walker IV, who was a starter for much of the season and averaged 11.8 points a game in 23 minutes, didn’t get off the bench against the Jazz April 4 despite the absence of Russell and the fact that the game went into overtime.

The Lakers might need Walker’s outside shooting touch come playoff time, but right now he’s the 10th or 11th man in Ham’s rotation.

Once the playoffs start, there will be no back-to-back games, meaning Davis and James will have more time to rest their sore feet. There is no telling what a well-rested James and Davis can do, which is the only reason I give the Lakers any chance of winning a playoff series.

Two months ago, I questioned whether they would even make the play-in tournament. Now I’m wondering how much damage they can do in the playoffs. I guarantee you one thing: No one in the top four spots in the Western Conference wants to face them in the first round.

The same can’t be said about the Clippers. No one knows if — when? — George will return from his knee injury.

Without him, the Clippers will be lucky to escape the play-in tournament, if that is their fate. If they manage to finish sixth and avoid the play-in tournament, they would face a tough Sacramento team that can outscore just about anybody in the league.

The two teams played at Crypto.com Arena six weeks ago and combined for 351 points in a game won by the Kings in overtime, 176-175. That would be a fun playoff series to watch.

But without George, the Clippers don’t have enough firepower to keep up with the Kings or any of the other standout teams in the conference. Plus, you never know how brittle Kawhi Leonard is going to be. 

Russell Westbrook has fit in better with the Clippers than he did with the Lakers, but he still has a tendency to take bad shots or make bad passes and then compound the error by not getting back fast enough on defense.

The Clippers could make a playoff run, but only if George is healthy and there is no sign that his return to the lineup is eminent.

It might be the play-in tournament is all the Clippers have to look forward to this season.

PLAYING IN: For those of you still unfamiliar with the play-in tournament, this is the third year it has been used by the NBA to give two additional teams in each conference a chance to play their way into the eight-team tournament.

The play-in tournament begins April 11 with the seventh-seeded team in each conference playing the eighth-seeded team. The winner of that game automatically becomes the seventh seed in the conference and advances to the playoffs.

On April 12, the ninth-seeded team in each conference plays the 10-seeded team. The winner of that game plays the loser of the April 11 game April 14 for the eighth seed in the conference. 

The playoffs themselves start April 15, with the conference semifinals starting May 1 and 2, the conference finals starting May 16-17 and the NBA Finals starting June 1.

If you think that is confusing, wait until next year when the NBA holds a tournament in the middle of the season. 

The players agreed to that in the new collective bargaining agreement that was approved last week.

SAME OLD DODGERS: Six games is a small sample size when you play a 162-game schedule, but judging from the first six games of the 2023, the Dodgers are the same team they have been in the last several years.

When they hit, they win. Pure and simple. The Dodgers hit their way to a franchise record 111 wins last season. They quit hitting in the playoffs and lost to San Diego in the second round of the playoffs.

In the first week of this season, the Dodgers are 4-2. They have scored at least five runs in the games they have won. They scored one run in each of the games they lost, identical 2-1 scores to the Arizona Diamondbacks March 31 and April 2.

The Dodgers split the four-game series with the Diamondbacks even though they outscored the Diamondbacks, 20-7.

The Dodgers still can hit for power. Even with a revamped lineup that has five new players this year, they have 13 home runs in the first six games. 

Rookies James Outman and Miguel Vargas are both getting on base and scoring runs. The reclamation projects of J.D. Martinez and Jason Heyward are on track and the outfield platoons in left and center field are working out fine. Manager Dave Roberts still juggles the lineup almost daily to keep everyone involved.

And the pitching has been superb so far, especially the starters. In six games, the starting pitchers have surrendered seven runs in 35 innings, an earned run average of 1.20. 

Only Michael Grove, a fill-in starter for the injured Tony Gonsolin, has been roughed up. He gave up three runs in the fifth inning of his start against the Colorado Rockies April 3, but he faced only 13 batters in the first four innings.

The Dodgers’ bats then erupted for seven runs in the bottom of the inning and the bullpen yielded only one run and four hits over the last five innings and the Dodgers won handily, 13-4.

The relief pitchers have given up six runs in 19 innings of work — a respectable 2.84 ERA — but have accounted for both losses so far.

There are still concerns about infield depth. Shortstop Miguel Rojas has a muscle injury and Vargas sat out the April 5 game after being hit on the thumb by a pitch the previous night.

Mookie Betts played second base in his place April 5 and gave the Dodgers a scare in the seventh inning when he was upended by Heyward while chasing a pop up into short right field. He got to his feet, limped off the field and then doubled and scored a run in the bottom of the inning and played the remainder of the game.

Other opening week highlights were the three home-run game by Trayce Thompson April 1 against Arizona, the overall play of catcher Will Smith, who is hitting .421 with three homers and 10 runs batted in in five games and the pitching of Julio Urias, who is 2-0 with a 1.50 ERA with 12 strikeouts and no walks in 12 innings.

Urias has won 39 games since the start of the 2021, the most of any pitcher in baseball during that time.

Another interesting stat for the team in the opening week is walks. In six games, Dodger pitchers have walked six batters. Dodger hitters have walked 33 times; both stats are the best in the major leagues so far.

It’s way too early to jump to any conclusions, but the Dodgers have made the playoffs for 10 straight seasons and I don’t think there is any reason to believe they won’t be there again this year once October rolls around.