James said afterward that he'll be fine, ready for what comes next. He made headlines a couple weeks ago when he said the person responsible for coming up with the idea of the play-in tournament at the NBA should be fired. If the Lakers don't win one of their next two games and wind up missing the playoffs, his opinion of the tourney will figure to get worse.

"We're getting healthy at the right time," Lakers veteran Jared Dudley said. "And nobody wants to see a healthy Lakers team."

Under the old system, the Lakers, Warriors, Celtics and Wizards would be in the playoffs. The Grizzlies, Spurs, Pacers and Hornets would be out.

Getting to the No 8 spot for the play-in round in the East is a massive comeback for the Wizards, who started the season 0-5 and 3-12, were shut down for two weeks in January for coronavirus-related issues, had to play 38 games in the season's final 67 days to make up for lost time and were 17-32 early last month.

They're 17-6 since. The play-in was their path to saving the season.

"I'm with the King, man. Why do they have this play-in thing? Whoever did that, they need to be fired," Washington coach Scott Brooks said, tongue firmly in cheek behind his mask. "No, I'm kidding. I love this. It created so much excitement the last two weeks, and as we all know anytime you can create excitement and meaningful games in the last 10 games of the season it's great for everyone involved."

The 7-8 game winners in each conference go to the playoffs as No 7 seeds; the West winner will play Phoenix in the first round, the East winner draws a matchup with Brooklyn. The 7-8 game loser will play host to the 9-10 winner in each conference; whomever prevails there will be the No 8 seed and meet either Utah－the NBA's overall No 1 seed－out West or Philadelphia in the East.

But before the playoffs officially begin this weekend, LeBron vs. Steph, a pair of guys who just happened to both be born in Akron, Ohio, looms.