Lakers begin play-off run

JUST over two months ago, the Lakers were walking a strange line between mediocrity and pageantry.

LeBron James broke the all-time scoring record in a loss to the Thunder, who were then neck-and-neck with Los Angeles in the play-in race.

It was like watching a retired actor get a lifetime achievement award, except James had 38 points in that game.

The fans who cheered when he broke the record shuffled out of the arena before the game ended, and the Lakers dropped to 13th in the Western Conference standings.

With the season further teetering into insignificance, even James’s brilliance became depressing, undercut by the sense that what was left of his greatness was being wasted.

Around him, Anthony Davis ranged from spectacular to unavailable to trade machine fodder. The Lakers were in the bottom six in 3-point attempts and percentage.

Russell Westbrook was simultaneously the favourite for Sixth Man of the Year and erasing hard-to-come-by leads, and James unsuccessfully lobbied to trade him for Kyrie Irving.

Building around James over the past few years has been far more complicated than it should have been.

But when Irving landed in Dallas, Rob Pelinka and company packaged Westbrook, role players, and the Lakers’ 2027 first-round pick for D’Angelo Russell, Jarred Vanderbilt and Malik Beasley. The Lakers finally leaned on a tried-and-true formula: surround James with shooters and defenders who can create extra possessions.

Nothing has been the same since.

The Lakers are tied for seventh in net rating, third in defence and 10th in pace since the trade, despite James missing 16 games.

Russell, a dead-eye pull-up shooter and calming conductor, leads the Lakers with 2.7 3-point makes per game and Beasley, who makes 2.5, is right behind him.

When Vanderbilt, a.k.a. “Dennis Rodman in training”, shares the floor with Davis, they gobble up 29,8 percent of the available offensive rebounds. Davis has been agile, aggressive and mostly available.

The Lakers’ half-court offence now hums with simplicity — an isolated side pick-and-roll between Davis and James here, a Beasley triple there, an Austin Reaves closeout attack there — while operating at a breakneck pace in transition.

The Lakers have gone 9-2 when Russell, James and Davis play together, albeit against a paper-thin schedule.

“We put ourselves in a position where we can move on,” James said before the Lakers’ play-in matchup against the Timberwolves, who lost Rudy Gobert and Jaden McDaniels to two very different self-inflicted punches.

“That’s all we asked for, to put ourselves in a position to move on.”

Next, the Lakers will have to walk into the Grindhouse, where the two-seed Memphis Grizzlies are 35-6, and steal one.

The series against the Grizzlies, who will be without Steven Adams and Brandon Clarke, will be massive for Davis.

The big man is the Lakers’ best player on some nights, and he is eager to prove his dominance to a wide-open Western Conference that is unequipped to tussle with him.

Since entering the league, Davis has been sold as the big man’s bridge to the modern era of basketball. He can indeed answer any call on defence; he can switch onto the most slithery guards, and opponents shoot 6,8 percent worse near the rim when Davis is nearby.

But he also toiled to develop an outside shot that has never come along.

The Grizzlies’ Jaren Jackson Jr, the league’s leading shot blocker, is the rare defender who can match Davis in size and strength.

But while his foul rate has declined over the years, he is still a touch too jumpy.

It is tempting, in a world where Jackson has only six fouls to spare, to say the seas have parted for a Lakers playoff run.

For Davis, unlocking the matchup against the Grizzlies will require a combination of strength, savvy, skill and will.

Jackson is one of the best defenders in the NBA.

On the other end, Davis will have his hands full, trying to slow down Ja Morant, who creates 1.188 points per chance coming off picks in which Davis is the screen defender.

AD can minimise the passing angles Morant seemingly creates out of thin air and try to make his life difficult around the rim, but the Lakers need a better answer to Ja’s in-between game than the ones they have developed so far.

That is where Vanderbilt, who just forced Anthony Edwards into one of his worst performances this season, comes in. — Wires