The Lakers vs Warriors was a Nail-biter Game
By all accounts, the play-in tournament has been a resounding success for the NBA this year. It created exciting new scenarios toward the end of the regular season and mostly stemmed the widespread tanking that had made a mockery of the final month of play for the 14 teams that weren't making the playoffs.
And it gave us a delicious matchup between the Los Angeles Lakers and Golden State Warriors on Wednesday night at Staples Center.
The game was an instant classic, with two of the league's brightest stars, Stephen Curry and LeBron James, matching each other with brilliant performances and clutch shot-making that felt more like one of their classic NBA Finals matchups than the play-in game to get to the actual playoffs.
James got the better of Curry on Wednesday, hitting a 34-foot 3-pointer over him to seal the Lakers' 103-100 win. The trey was the longest go-ahead shot in the final three minutes of a game in James' career, according to ESPN Stats & Information research.
James finished with 22 points, 11 rebounds and 10 assists for his 128th career triple-double (including regular season, play-in and playoffs).
The Lakers' win gives them the No. 7 seed in the Western Conference and a first-round playoff matchup against the second-seeded Phoenix Suns. And it drops the Warriors, now fighting for the 8-seed, into an elimination game Friday against the Memphis Grizzlies (9 p.m. ET on ESPN).
It's fair to question if the reward for all that excitement is worth the risk of potentially losing one of the league's marquee franchises before the playoffs officially begin. The Warriors now have less than 48 hours to regroup before facing the Grizzlies in San Francisco. It is a bit redundant from the Warriors' regular-season finale win over Memphis on Sunday that determined the eighth seed in the play-in tournament.
In any other year, that win would have sent the Warriors into a first-round series against the top-seeded Utah Jazz. But this year, they'll have to play two extra games, one of which is an elimination game, just to advance to the same series.
When considering this, it's easy to see why some fans may have gripes about this new format. Even LeBron himself has stated that whoever came up with the play-in tournament "needs to be fired". Like all new things, it will take a while to get used to this new format, but when we do, assuming it's permanent, it has the potential to be an exciting and suspenseful prelude to the post-season. It's already showing signs of that, as shown by this game.
