Lakers survive Zion Williamson’s wrath; Kings force Warriors into offseason of uncertainty

The first round of the 2024 NBA In-Season Tournament tipped off on Tuesday with the No. 8 seed Los Angeles Lakers upsetting the No. 7 seed New Orleans Pelicans 110-106 at the Smoothie King Center. The Lakers will go on to play the No. 2 seed Denver Nuggets in the first round of the NBA Playoffs.

Then, the No. 9 seed Sacramento Kings defended home court and knocked the No. 10 seed Golden State Warriors out of the Play-In Tournament. The Kings will play the Pelicans on Thursday for the final playoff spot, and a date with the Oklahoma City Thunder in the first round.

Here are some quick thoughts on Tuesday’s games from FOX Sports’ NBA reporters:

Kings 118, Warriors 94

Steve Kerr’s grimace. Klay Thompson’s bloody lip and 1000-yard stare. Draymond Green’s exasperated shrug. Steph Curry’s skyward squint, searching for answers.

Scenes from the end of a dynasty.

“This is life,” said coach Steve Kerr. “You don’t get to stay on top forever.”

The Golden State Warriors are neither on top nor still alive this season, with their hopes of playing into the playoffs ending with a 114-98 loss to the ninth-seeded Sacramento Kings, who now visit the New Orleans Pelicans on Friday looking for the Western Conference’s eighth and final playoff slot and the right to face the top-seeded Oklahoma City Thunder.

The Warriors, meanwhile, will begin the soul-searching and roster analysis that comes after the league’s highest player payroll failed to secure a playoff berth. Thompson is an unrestricted free agent. The last year of veteran point guard Chris Paul’s contract is a non-guaranteed $30 million. Decisions need to be made on extending Jonathan Kuminga and Moses Moody’s rookie-scale contracts. Owner Joe Lacob indicated cost-cutting measures were in order even before Tuesday’s disappointing finish. 

“We’ve got an offseason where we have a lot to think about, for sure,” Kerr said.

[Related: How Steve Kerr navigated his toughest season with Warriors: ‘We love each other’]

Not that the Warriors were expecting it to end this way. They arrived in Sacramento with hopes of salvaging a season rife with challenges both self-inflicted and tragically unforeseeable. Green began a 12-game suspension after choking one opponent and backhanding another in mid-December, prompting a 10-11 tailspin. Then, one game after his return, assistant coach Dejan Milojevic suffered a fatal heart attack, the team wearing t-shirts that said “Brate” — brother in Serbian — in warm-ups for the remainder of the season.

Thompson’s struggles resulted in him being dropped from the starting lineup in mid-February, followed by Andrew Wiggins leaving the team for personal reasons. His absence only lasted a handful of games, but it sent another shock wave through the team. Wiggins missed the last seven weeks of the 2022-23 regular season under similarly murky circumstances.

A 10-2 run to close the regular season earned the Warriors the West’s final play-in berth, but they looked alternately too old and too young against the Kings. Kuminga had 12 first-half points but added only four more in the second. Rookie guard Brandin Podziemski also had a strong first half with five points and five rebounds but went scoreless in the second half. Fellow rookie center Trayce Jackson-Davis started but played only 10 minutes, contributing one rebound and two points. Curry, 36, faced a wall of purple Sacramento jerseys as soon as he crossed midcourt and the attention eventually took its toll with four of his six turnovers coming in the second half, most of them unforced.

Thompson, 34, finished scoreless, missing all 10 of his shots, including six three-pointers. Green, also 34, had three rebounds in 35 minutes, the fewest he’s had in a game this season in which he played more than 30 minutes. The coltish Kings, meanwhile, collectively had nine offensive rebounds before the Warriors got their first, a put-back by Jonathan Kuminga on his own miss under the rim in the final minute of the first half.

Vanquishing the Warriors had to be sweet revenge for the Kings in general and Harrison Barnes in particular. The Warriors eliminated the Kings last season, overcoming a 2-0 series deficit to upset third-seeded Sacramento in last year’s first round, including a decisive beat-down in Game 7 on this same Golden One Center floor. 

Barnes, meanwhile, was jettisoned by the Warriors in favor of Kevin Durant after they blew a 3-1 lead in the 2016 Finals, the Cleveland Cavaliers’ comeback helped in part by Barnes shooting 5 for 32 over the final three games of that series. It was a different story Tuesday night, as Barnes finished with 17 points, including 3 of 4 three-pointers, and a team-high plus-minus of 29. He appeared to take particular satisfaction repeatedly bumping Thompson off-balance and scoring over him.

Kerr spent the final minutes of Tuesday night’s game reflecting about the 2016 Finals journey as well as the five others that he and the core group of Curry, Thompson and Green made.

“Our core group has had six finals runs,” Kerr said. “That’s what I was thinking about as it became clear that we were losing. Our guys have been fighting for so long. We’ve been blessed with some incredible highs. This is the flip side.”

Lakers 110, Pelicans 106

What a shame for Zion Williamson.

After a masterful performance in which he had a season-high 40 points, 11 rebounds, five assists and one blocked shot in 36 minutes in the New Orleans Pelicans’ play-in game against the Los Angeles Lakers on Tuesday, he suffered an apparent leg injury with just over 3 minutes left and went to the locker room. 

At the time, the score was tied 95-95. 

WIthout Williamson, the Lakers rallied in the final minutes to clinch the seventh seed. Their consolation prize? In the first round of the playoffs, they’ll face the second-seeded Denver Nuggets, the reigning NBA champions who swept them out of the Western Conference Finals last year. 

The whole situation is a bummer for the oft-injured Williamson, who transformed his body this season en route to playing a career-high 70 games. On Tuesday, he had the most impressive performances of his career, helping the Pelicans storm back from an 18-point deficit on a major stage.

Now, the Pelicans’ season will be in jeopardy with their star player’s status currently to be determined when they play the winner of the other play-in game between the ninth-seeded Sacramento Kings and the 10th-seeded Golden State Warriors  on Friday. 

As for the Lakers, they oscillated between stunning displays of defense and complete and utter discombulation, but ultimately pulled off the win behind 23 points, nine rebounds and nine assists from LeBron James, 20 points, 15 rebounds and three blocked shots from Anthony Davis and 21 points from D’Angelo Russell, including five 3-pointers.

The Lakers outshot the Pelicans from the free-throw line, 29-15 and only committed eight turnovers compared to the Pelicans’ 13, enabling them to slink past being outrebounded by the Pelicans, 50-41. 

So, in summary, the Pelicans lost Zion. And the Lakers lost any hope of avoiding the Nuggets in the early rounds. 

The Winners? Us, who witnessed a play-in game for ages.