"I'm going with Lakers" - Stephen A. crew react Lakers will get out of 1st-rd after losing Clippers

...and secure the fifth spot in the Western Conference. They have lost 10 straight to the LA Clippers. The Lakers made a couple of nice runs, but they just couldn't sustain anything defensively. You just don't have the legs, the bounce that you had the night before. The Lakers have put themselves in too big a hole. The Lakers just didn't have the energy to start the game. LeBron James, 33 points, but not enough. Anthony Davis, 17 points tonight, not enough. Another year over with the Clippers. They'll fall into seventh in a time with the Pelicans, with two games remaining. ...last night in a game crucial to postseason seeding and loss, 125 to 118, after trailing by as many as 24 points. The win for the Clippers vaulted into number five, while the Lakers are number seven with home games against the Phoenix Suns on Friday and Utah Jazz on Sunday remaining. LeBron had 33 points, 30 of which came in the second half. Here he is after their loss. It's one of the tougher games we've had this year. Just coming off the road trip, and even though this is a road game, just coming off the road trip and getting back late last night, but after an overtime game, it was a tough game for us. Obviously, we started off in the first half not so playing Laker basketball. We had some good spurts, but not enough. This is one of those scheduling conflicts in the season, and definitely got the best of us tonight. All right. As I mentioned, that loss drops the Lakers into seventh seed, and they are now one full game behind the Warriors for the sixth seed in a final non-playing spot with a tiebreaker already in hand against the defending champions. Fitz, I'm going to start with you because this is your first take debut. It's been a minute, right? Do you think the Lakers would get out of the first round? Absolutely not. Look, LeBron can talk all day long about the fact that this is the backside of a back-to-back, but I don't really care about that. The fact is they were in the situation they were in last night because they couldn't take care of business the night before. If you go in and you handle Utah, you're not in this situation. It took a Herculean effort in the second half for LeBron to even put them back into this game. They were getting blown out and through all of it. Now we have to sit there and look at it and say, well, how are they going to challenge everybody else? The answer is they're not. The teams ahead of the Lakers, shocking news, are better than the Lakers, so we're constantly trying to put them in this conversation when, Harry, they don't belong there because they haven't played well enough, not just last night, but all stinking year. Now, I would say this. When you look at the Western Conference in the way it's constructed right now, the Lakers have the seventh seed. So if everything finished today, they would match up with the Memphis Grizzlies. If you look at their record this season versus the Memphis Grizzlies, they're one and two, right? The group that's constructed right now for the Lakers, when you talk about Anthony Davis, you talk about LeBron James, you brought over D'Angelo Russell, Austin Reeves is playing a lot better at the moment. I think it's possible. Now, is it going to be a stretch? 100% it's going to be a stretch, Fitz. But when you talk about the king, LeBron James, who I know is your GOAT, the greatest of all time in your eyes. 100%. I know that for a fact. You're going to tell me you're going to count the GOAT out? But here's the thing, though. I think it's very imperative that they got to play through Anthony Davis. There was moments in that ballgame last night versus the Clippers when you heard Mark Jackson say it. Okay, Anthony Davis is one-on-one. They got to get it to him. The fact is, though, Harry, when you start thinking about the Lakers, it's about trust, right? You just mentioned they got to go through AD, which happens sometimes, and then it doesn't happen sometimes. You mentioned LeBron, who last night was only capable of putting three points up in the first half because his legs obviously weren't there. Sure, he gets 30 in the second half, but it was almost like a load management game for LeBron. I'm looking at it. All of the trust factors that you have to combine to suddenly make this happen, why would I not apply that same trust to a team like Memphis that throughout the course of the year, when they have Ja, they're great. When they didn't have Ja, they still did really well. Where Jaron Jackson Jr. is out here being the defensive player of the year. We are disrespecting the Grizzlies in this process because we want to respect LeBron so much. I get the greatness of LeBron. I get the greatness on paper of this Lakers team, but it's not a video game. So I can't just trust what I think the roster looks like. I got to trust what the eye test tells me. And the eye test on this has not just told us for a week or two weeks or three weeks like we took one moment of quality play for the Lakers and we're trying to turn that into a narrative when the fact is from the beginning of the season to now, they just aren't trustworthy. Well, here's the thing about the Memphis Grizzlies that worried me. What if they get to a moment where they have the shooting laws in which we both seen this season from Memphis Grizzlies, right? Desmond Bain has been a guy that can shoot the lights out of the basketball, but we know that's one of the other deficiencies of the Memphis Grizzlies. Also, Jaron Jackson Jr. I love his game. But what if he gets in foul trouble like we know him to accustomed to be in, right? What if you get into one of those situations? Now, Anthony Davis is a guy that I think since LeBron James got hurt, he's really stepped up his game. I think he's averaging about 27 points per game, maybe 27, 26. He's done a phenomenal job. Austin Reeves is another guy that stepped out. I'm worried about Austin Reeves, not offensively, but defensively. Because last night, Norman Powell took him to school. Every opportunity that he got. But it's something to be said about the Los Angeles Lakers, and they came off a back-to-back fix. And yeah, against Utah, I blame the Lakers because you shouldn't have been in a dog fight with them. The game should have been over in regulation. You had to go in overtime. Now, it's crossing over to a game that you need versus the Clippers, and your legs are shot. But I'm not going to sit up here and discredit the Kings. They called them the Kings for a reason. LeBron James? Nah, I can't do that. When we started this show, you made a joke about me being the old guy, right? At some point, are we not talking about the old guys in the playoffs, right? We're talking about the old guys against a bunch of youthful legs. Spring chickens. They're spring chickens. And so at some point, I'm looking at it. If you're going to tell me that when everything's on the line, and you have got to have a win, you don't get it done against Utah, and you don't get it done last night against the Clippers, who have now beaten you 11 straight times. If you're talking about that, then what I hear out of that is, man, if you're going to blame the schedule for that, what are you going to do when we get into the playoffs? That second season is a grind. Can their legs even take it? We don't know. I feel like the Lakers have so many questions, and the only answer anybody can ever give is, well, LeBron and AD. That's not a real answer, because I'll take your LeBron and AD, and I'll tell you this. If you look top to bottom at the talent all across, and the way they played this year, Denver's a better team. Phoenix is a better team. Memphis is a better team. We're just trying to cram the Lakers into the conversation because we think, rightfully so, LeBron's too good to discredit. But I'm going to discredit if the rest of the teams are better. Well, I will say this. When they made the trade, and they got Malik Beasley, they got D'Angelo Russell, that added a different spark to the Lakers, you know, team. And then when LeBron James went out and got hurt, I was impressed at the way they performed. I was impressed at the way they were able to keep things afloat until LeBron James got back. I understand they lost to the Clippers last night, but let's not act like they were not on the back-to-back. And I'll give you another scenario. You look at the Milwaukee Bucks versus the Boston Celtics recently, right? And you see how they got throttled. Well, they played a game the day before. I would have loved to see that game on the front end, not the back end of a back-to-back. But what did Milwaukee do after that? They responded, all right? They responded. And so the fact is, for me, every time— But it was a back-to-back, though, for the Lakers. That's the first time AD's played a back-to-back. That's the first time he's played a back-to-back. LeBron James coming off injury. He wasn't going to play a back-to-back, but it was a situation where they had to. But what did you say on Fitz and Harry? You said on Fitz and Harry, no excuses. It's go time. Yeah, it's go time. Now we're making excuses. That's the hard part for me. But at the same time, it's reality, too, though. It's reality, too. If Anthony Davis has been out with injuries, and he's not playing back-to-backs, and all of a sudden, you get in a game the night before, and you've got to go in overtime to win, and now you've got to play a back-to-back? You just— Fitz, I'm asking this, because you don't think that the Lakers will make it out of the first round of the playoffs. That's their floor. What do you think their ceiling is? If they were to do something. I mean— I mean, don't do it. I mean, we're just being honest. OK, so the ceiling here is, all of a sudden, everything comes up roses. Everything's glorious. AD and LeBron go out and be the AD and LeBron that we thought they would be when the season started, and they find themselves in the NBA Finals. I just don't think that's realistic. Like, I think that, sure, every time we look at it, I think that could happen. But also, like, I could wake up tomorrow and suddenly have the ups I've never had, and I could dunk a basketball, but I'm not going to bank on that. So what's their ceiling in your eyes again? You will not dunk a basketball. What's their ceiling? What's their ceiling to you? First round exit. That's their ceiling. I'm sticking by it. What's their ceiling that you just said? I mean, their ceiling, if everything goes right, is, you know, they can make it to the NBA Finals. But what do you all— But here's the thing, though. Another expression. Another expression, I'm stealing from Harry Douglas. You know, if if was a fifth, right? Like, I'm just saying— We'd all be drunk, baby. On that hint, down you go. You know, you're right. If suddenly they all find the Fountain of Youth and it's glorious, they'll get to the NBA Finals, and I'm not putting money on that. About the Western Conference, it's all ifs, right? Because this is—I think this is as wide open as we've seen the Western Conference in a long time. Because a lot of teams had injuries top to bottom, right? You had people missing from the Grizzlies. You had people missing from the Clippers, the Lakers, the Warriors. It's ifs from top to bottom. The Suns. Kevin Durant has been hurt. But he's been magnificent when he's played with the team. But the one thing I always do is I try to apply benefit of the doubt universally, top to bottom. So if I'm going to give the benefit of the doubt to the Lakers that suddenly they get healthy and they're healthy enough, they can ride through, their legs are great, everything comes up roses. If I'm going to apply that benefit of the doubt to the Lakers, then why don't I apply it to every other team in the West? And if that happens, if we apply the same benefit of the doubt, that the ifs all come up positive for everybody, the Lakers are about to— You know why you can't apply it to every other team. Why not? Because they don't have the king. That's why. Your goat! Okay. Your goat! Let's move on. All right, let's go over to the Eastern Conference. You mentioned the Bucs because the Bucs have secured the number, the best record in the NBA and the number one seed in the Eastern Conference after a 1-0 win.