Lakers set 8th seed bid in Play-In Tournament after commanding win over Pelicans
05/14/2024- LeBron James skies in for the lay-in. Photo credit: Stephen Lew-USA TODAY Sports
New Orleans, Louisiana — The Los Angeles Lakers have set themselves as the 8th seed of the Play-In Tournament after a commanding 124–108 season finale win over the New Orleans Pelicans, which marked their regular-season record to 47–35.
L.A. will stay in New Orleans for Tuesday’s 7th and 8th-seed play-in game against the Pelicans. The winner will get the 7th seed in the Western Conference playoffs against the 2nd seed, the defending champs, the Denver Nuggets. The loser stays in the play-in to host the 9th and 10th seed winner between the Warriors and Kings.
Anthony Davis, who finished with an impactful 30-point, 11-rebound performance, exited the game in the final five minutes with a back injury after being shoved in mid-air. He described the incident as causing a hyperextension. After the win, Lakers head coach Darvin Ham and Davis reassured Lakers fans that he would be good to go for the play-in.
“There’s no doubt I’m gonna play,” Davis said, according to Spectrum SportsNet. “I’ll do some treatment, keep it loose and see how I feel over the next 24 hours to get ready for Tuesday.”
Ham said his injury was just a spasm and “nothing major,” adding that he’s “extremely optimistic” about Davis’ status.
Davis finishes the 2023–24 regular season, averaging 24.6 points, 12.7 rebounds and 2.4 blocks per game in a career-high 76 games played this season—77 if you count the In-Season Tournament Championship game win over the Pacers.
LeBron James capped off his 21st regular-season finale with a triple-double performance, his fifth of the season, with 28 points, 17 assists and 11 rebounds.
At this point last season, the all-time scoring leader was dealing with a nagging ankle injury that affected him in their Conference Finals run. He said he feels better physically now than he did going into last season’s playoffs, despite playing the most games in a season in his Lakers tenure (71) at 39-years-old.
“At this point in my career, to be able to play 70-plus games. Be available for my guys. A few of them [missed games] was because of injury of illness. That’s pretty cool,” James said, according to Spectrum SportsNet.
James’ longevity continued in year 21 with no regression in sight, achieving a career-high 41.3% shooting from three-point range while averaging 25.6 points, 8.2 assists and 7.2 rebounds per game.
All Lakers starters finished in double-digit scoring, with James and Davis’s big outing matched by Austin Reaves’s 20 points, D’Angelo Russell’s 19 points and Rui Hachimura’s 11 points.
L.A. set the tone from the start, hitting their first five buckets to reach an early 10-point lead. The Lakers continued their playoff-ready showing, scoring 70 points in the first half, with 50 coming in the paint. They finished with 68 points in the paint, leading to a 55.2% (48-for-87) field goal rate, resulting in their biggest lead at 32 points.
After gut-wrenching back-to-back losses to the Kings and Warriors in mid-March that dropped them to 36–32, the Lakers have rebounded with an 11–3 record, winning seven road games in that span in their last 14 games of the regular season.
“Good regular season for us, even throughout everything that went on… For us to end the season 12 games over .500, 13 if you count the championship of the In-Season Tournament, for everything we went through, it’s a pretty good season for us,” James said.
If the Lakers finished with the same record this season (47–35) as last season, they would be a fourth-seed playoff team — showing how competitive it is in the Wild West.
The Lakers play the Pelicans on Tuesday, April 16, at 4:30 p.m.
