Lakers 248 Unpacks LA's Journey To Playoffs, D'Angelo Russell's Awful Play-In

How LA salvaged its season and made the playoffs.

Our Lakers 248 podcast crew of Doug McKain, Noah Camras and Noel Sanchez got together to recap Tuesday's surprisingly tense 108-102 Los Angeles Lakers overtime play-in game victory over the Minnesota Timberwolves. With the win, LA advanced to the Western Conference's 2-7 matchup, and will face off against the Memphis Grizzlies tomorrow at noon.

"That was a crazy game. I don't think anyone expected no one to score for just minutes at a time," Camras observed. "It kind of felt like you were watching college basketball, March Madness. All the kids are nervous, no one can get a bucket, the turnovers are flying. It was a really fun game."

For his part, Sanchez claimed he "never had a doubt" that the Lakers would take care of business in the game's overtime frame, after an Anthony Davis defensive gaffe on Mike Conley allowed the Timberwolves to tie things up with 0.1 seconds remaining.

"I knew they were going to pull it off," Sanchez said. "They did not want to go in another play-in game."

"What's crazy is we said on the show if the Lakers slow down Anthony Edwards this game's going to be a route," Camras noted. "And somehow some way it wasn't a route, even though Anthony Edwards had probably one of if not the worst game of his NBA career."

The group later reflected on the miserable play-in game performance of D'Angelo Russell against the team that traded him away at this year's deadline. D-Lo did have eight dimes (against just one turnover), but scored just two points on 1-of-9 shooting from the floor and looked like a deer in headlights for most of the night. 

"We talked about it before -- 'Playoff D-Lo,' he got benched last year in the Timberwolves' play-in game, so very similar [to that]," Camras said. "Unfortunately he just could not get his shot going. Fortunately he was impacting the game in other aspects. I mean he ended up being a great facilitator... I don't think he's going to continue this cold streak [in the upcoming Grizzlies series]."

"Yeah it just wasn't a great night for D'Angelo Russell," McKain concurred. "I think he put some pressure on himself early on... I also think too, he's playing against the Timberwolves, his former team... But also, not D'Angelo Russell, [fellow ex-Timberwolves player Jarred Vanderbilt] didn't have a good game, neither did [ex-Timberwolf] Malik Beasley."

"It was pretty disappointing seeing my boy on the bench down the stretch. He should have been there in the clutch," noted D'Angelo Russell fan Sanchez conceded. "I feel like D-Lo's going to bounce back."

McKain then pivoted to zooming out on LA's progression this season, from a miserable start with a mismatched club weighed down by washed-up point guards Russell Westbrook, Patrick Beverley, and Kendrick Nunn to a totally revitalized group with a new supporting cast around incumbent rotation players LeBron James, Anthony Davis, Dennis Schröder and Wenyen Gabriel (Lonnie Walker IV stuck around through the trade deadline, too, but he felt the roster squeeze).

"You're talking about a team that had a 0.2% chance to make the playoffs [after a brutal 2-12 start] and now they're the seventh [seed]," McKain said. "You look at this year, you've got to feel good about it."

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