Baltimore Sun

Who rises to the occasion?

In ‘loaded’ West, plenty to be worked out in push for playoffs

- By Tim Reynolds

Kevin Durant went to Phoenix. Russell Westbrook moved from Los Angeles to Los Angeles. Kevin Love did what once worked out nicely for LeBron James, taking his talents from Cleveland to Miami. And speaking of James, he says he’s about to play some of the biggest games of his career.

The All-Star break ends Thursday.

Let the playoff-push fireworks begin. “It’s not the start of a new season,” Heat guard Tyler Herro said. “But I think this is when guys really raise their level of play.”

The Celtics, Bucks, 76ers, Nuggets, Cavaliers and Grizzlies probably can go ahead and make playoff plans. The Rockets, Hornets, Spurs and Pistons probably can go ahead and start scheduling April vacations.

That leaves 20 teams for 10 playoff spots. The Kings are in position to end the longest drought in NBA history — 16 years and counting — and the Cavaliers are in line to make the playoffs without LeBron on the roster for the first time since 1998.

“We have a group that’s dedicated to winning, and there are certain things we have to learn about each other,” Cavaliers guard Donovan Mitchell said. “It’s not going to be all sunshine and rainbows with us. We’re still a team that’s young, but we also are figuring each other out.”

The Cavs are five games behind the Celtics, 4 ½ behind the Bucks and two behind the 76ers in the East. The rest of the race might get jumbled; the 13th-place Magic are only four games from a play-in berth.

“We’ve given ourselves a chance,” Magic rookie Paolo Banchero said.

Out West, it’s a mess.

“The West is loaded now,” Clippers forward Marcus Morris Sr. said. “I don’t know how that happened.”

Here’s how: Durant’s trade to the Suns could make a team that looked vulnerable anything but vulnerable.

The Nuggets are five games clear of the Grizzlies for the West lead and eight games up on the No. 3 Kings.

But starting with the Kings, there are 11 teams in the standings — the Kings, Clippers (who just got Westbrook, after he was bought out by the Jazz following a trade with the Lakers), Suns, Mavericks (now with Kyrie Irving alongside Luka Doncic), Pelicans, Timberwolv­es, Warriors, Thunder, Jazz, Trail Blazers and the Lakers — separated by just six games.

The seedings could flip every night out West.

And James — who just passed Kareem Abdul-Jabbar for the NBA scoring record — says the 23 games the Lakers have left carry incredible significan­ce.

He didn’t go to the playoffs last year. He can’t envision missing them again.

“I don’t want to see myself not being part of the postseason for two years straight. It’s just not part of my DNA,” James said.

Here’s some of what to know for the stretch run:

Seven with 30

There are seven players — the Mavs’ Doncic, 76ers’ Joel Embiid, Bucks’ Giannis Antetokoun­mpo, Thunder’s Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Blazers’ Damian Lillard, Celtics’ Jayson Tatum and James — averaging at least 30 points per game.

If that holds, it’ll be an NBA record. There’s been only one season with more than three such players. That was 196162, with six — Wilt Chamberlai­n (50.4), Elgin Baylor (38.3 in 48 games, technicall­y not enough to qualify as a scoring leader), Walt Bellamy (31.6), Bob Pettit (31.1), Oscar Robertson (30.8) and Jerry West (30.8).

It’s the 4th quarter

It’s not the second half of the season. It’s really the fourth quarter.

An NBA regular season has 1,230 games; 884, or 72%, have been played. So if the season was an NBA game clock, 1:30 would remain in the third quarter.

Teams have somewhere between 21 and 25 games left. The Timberwolv­es are down to a league-low eight home games remaining. The Wizards have a league-high 15 home games left.

The champs

The Warriors will emerge from the All-Star break ninth in the West.

The defending NBA champions have some work to do.

No reigning champ has missed the following season’s playoffs since the Bulls didn’t get to the postseason in 1999. Before that, it was the Celtics not making the playoffs in 1970.

Those Bulls lost Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen. Those Celtics lost Bill Russell and Sam Jones.

Busy LA

Crypto.com Arena will be busy — the Lakers and Clippers both have 13 home games to play in the season’s final 46 days.

Not one, not two, but three NBA teams play three consecutiv­e games in Los Angeles during March — the Lakers, Clippers and Thunder. They visit the Clippers on March 21 and 23, then visit the Lakers on March 24.

 ?? KYLE TERADA/AP ?? Lakers star LeBron James on the possibilit­y of missing the NBA playoffs two seasons in a row: “It’s just not part of my DNA.”
KYLE TERADA/AP Lakers star LeBron James on the possibilit­y of missing the NBA playoffs two seasons in a row: “It’s just not part of my DNA.”

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