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Alexander: Are the Lakers the team that won’t die?

April 12, 2023

LOS ANGELES — Maybe it was fate that pushed the Lakers into their triumphant moment Tuesday night.

Maybe the frenzied ending and the explosions of noise from the faithful had to happen the way they did, after the home team had trailed by 15 against a Minnesota club that entered the night shorthanded and a heavy underdog but took the fight to the Lakers and had them on their heels for much of the first three quarters.

The home team’s ultimate 108-102 victory in overtime was, for sure, a reminder to never assume. It was also a reminder that the failures and struggles of earlier in the season might have been building blocks.

It was, for large stretches, absolutely inelegant. The quality of play and the spottiness of the Lakers’ efficiency for much of the night were certainly no endorsements for picking the No. 7 seed Lakers over the No. 2 seed Memphis Grizzlies when their best-of-seven first-round series begins Sunday, no matter how many “team nobody wants to face” descriptions we’ll hear in coming days about any team that starts with LeBron James and Anthony Davis and goes from there.

And yet … maybe we’re looking at a true zombie team here, The Team That Wouldn’t Die. A team that started the year 2-10, dealt with injuries and personnel changes and stayed in the fight, and somehow is still in it.

Maybe there truly is something to Coach Darvin Ham’s insistence that W and L stands just as much for Wisdom and Lessons as for Wins and Losses, though the latter is what tends to determine how long a coach stays employed.

“I think some of the huge disappointing losses we experienced early on – whether it was a defensive breakdown, whether it was an unfortunate foul, whether it was missed free throws, whether it was running out of gas in overtime – it’s totally uncomfortable when you’re in the moment and going through those things,” Ham said.

“But again, you have to find the silver lining in things, whether it’s basketball, major sports in general, in life. You constantly got to look for a silver lining and look forward and learn from these mistakes so that, you know, they’re not repetitive, they don’t become repetitive.”

It’s a multi-faceted process. The transactions that brought people like D’Angelo Russell, Jarred Vanderbilt, Rui Hachimura and Malik Beasley to the roster at midseason also brought opportunities for both newcomers and holdovers to share experiences, create dialogue and figure out ways for individuals to become part of the whole.

“And you go to that process and once you get to the end of things, to have everyone healthy, to be playing in the type of rhythm we’re playing in, to defend at the level that we’re defending at going into the most important time of the year, you can’t ask for a better situation,” Ham said.

The craziness of the late stages of regulation – a dead-on 3-pointer by Dennis Schröder to give the Lakers a 98-95 lead with 1.4 seconds left, followed by a questionable foul call against Anthony Davis on a 3-point try by Minnesota’s Mike Conley with one-tenth of a second left and Conley’s three free throws to re-tie the score – probably didn’t faze the Lakers because the entire journey from 2-10 to the playoffs has been crazy.

“With the mindset that we have, it was just, ‘Next play,’” Austin Reaves said. “We did not dwell on it or anything like that. That just shows the resilience of the team.”

That, James said, is something his team has been very good at, being “able to stick with the game and find a way to gut it out and win – (despite) slow starts or not finishing the game off the way we’d like to.

“You know, just always trying to find a way. And tonight was another instance of that versus a very, very, very good team.”

It was a true playoff atmosphere, even if the NBA doesn’t consider these games part of the playoffs but instead, the “Play-In Tournament” (with, of course, a title sponsor).

The capacity crowd raised the noise level exponentially as the game got tighter and crazier, and particular plays – Schröder’s 3-pointer at the end of regulation, Hachimura’s 3-pointer in the first minute of overtime, and Davis’ inside basket over Karl-Anthony Towns with 1:40 left in overtime for a 105-100 lead – had to have had Apple Watches throughout the building issuing “loud environment” warnings.

“It’s playoff intensified out there,” James said. “You dive for loose balls, you’re taking charges, you run guys off the line trying to keep your body in front of ’em.

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“Basically you’re just takin’ the gas down to E, then try to refuel as much as you can save as a reserve tank. … You can always find a way to make one more play, one more steal, one more block and one more rebound, you know, or get one more stop.”

Next play … next game … next series … this is how the Lakers’ 2022-23 season has been built, with the lessons of the bad times informing the decisions of the better ones.

“That’s been our mantra, what’s represented us the entire season: Just trying to move forward,” Ham said. “Not constantly belaboring an issue, a problem, what went wrong, but just constantly trying to find solutions to make sure we don’t make the same mistake twice.”

That mentality, and having been in urgency mode for most of the previous month, has gotten them here. And now they’ve reached the time of the basketball year that, at least for this proud franchise, truly defines success or failure.

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Orange County Register

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Alexander: Are the Lakers the team that won’t die?

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