Culture
Lakers hold off Pelicans, will face Nuggets in first round
After a disastrous loss to the Los Angeles Lakers to close their regular season, the New Orleans Pelicans sought redemption in the opening game of the NBA Play-In Tournament on Tuesday. Instead of redemption, the Pels got a high-intensity affair that ended in a 110-106 loss after star Zion Williamson’s 40-point game and early exit.
With the win, the Lakers earned a meeting with the defending champion Nuggets in Denver on Saturday in the first round of the playoffs. The Pelicans will host the Sacramento Kings — who knocked off the Golden State Warriors on Tuesday — in an elimination matchup Friday.
LeBron James scored a team-high 23 points, to go along with nine assists and nine rebounds. Lakers D’Angelo Russell, who scored 21 points and added seven assists, was also instrumental in the victory, shooting 5 of 11 from 3. Former Pelican Anthony Davis put up 20 points and notched a game-high 15 rebounds.
Williamson, whose 40 points paced both teams, also finished with 11 rebounds and five assists. He walked to the locker room in the final minutes of the game with what Pelicans coach Willie Green later described as left leg soreness.
But with Williamson, the Pelicans shook off their Sunday sluggishness with a back-and-forth night. They carried a 10-point lead into the early seconds of the second quarter, but Los Angeles found its momentum before the break and took a 10-point lead into halftime. From there, the Lakers kept building in the third as they continued to limit CJ McCollum (nine points total) and Brandon Ingram (11 points), who looked off after playing in his second game back after missing the previous 12 games with a knee injury.
The Pelicans reduced their 18-point deficit to seven points entering the fourth quarter, and found a spark from there, pushing to within two points after a 9-0 run that included a Williamson block on James that led to a Jose Alvarado 3. Alvarado then assisted Williamson on a monster dunk to tie the game 93-93, but the Lakers ultimately put the game away after Williamson’s shock exit with just over three minutes left.
ALVARDO TO ZION.
WE ARE TIED IN THE #SoFiPlayIn.
4 minutes left on TNT. pic.twitter.com/h9HeKaObJt
— NBA (@NBA) April 17, 2024
How will Lakers fare against Nuggets?
This was a spirited win for the Lakers, who staved off the Pelicans’ second-half rally to secure the No. 7 seed and advance to face the No. 2 Nuggets in a rematch of last season’s Western Conference finals. The Lakers will certainly be heavy underdogs entering the series, but they’re confident that their new starting lineup and high-powered offense will give them a chance to defeat the defending champions.
The obvious challenge will be solving Denver’s crunch-time offense, which has shredded the Lakers over the past calendar year. Denver has won eight straight games against the Lakers entering Game 1 on Saturday. — Jovan Buha, Lakers senior writer
GO DEEPER
Win and face Denver, or lose and risk elimination? There’s no wrong choice for Lakers
You can buy tickets to every NBA game here.
Required reading
(Photo: Jonathan Bachman / Getty Images)
Culture
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Test Your Knowledge of the Authors and Events That Helped Shape the United States
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Video: How Much Do You Know About Romance Books?
Let’s play romance roulette. No genre has dominated the books world in the last few years. Like romance, it accounts for the biggest percentage of book sales, their avid fan bases. Everyone has been talking about romance as a Book Review editor and as a fan of the genre myself, I put together a to z glossary of 101 terms that you should know if you want to understand the world of romance are cinnamon roll. You may think a cinnamon roll is a delicious breakfast treat, but in a romance novel, this refers to a typically male character who is so sweet and tender and precious that you just want to protect him and his beautiful heart from the world. Ooh, a rake. This is basically the Playboy of historical romance. He defies societal rules. He drinks, he gambles. He’s out on the town all night and is a very prolific lover with a bit of a reputation as a ladies’ man. FEI these are super strong, super sexy, super powerful, immortal, fairy like creatures. One of my favorite discoveries in terms that I learned was stern brunch daddy. A lot of daddy’s usually a male love interest who seems very intimidating and alpha, but then turns out to be a total softie who just wants to make his love interest brunch. I think there’s a misconception that because these books can follow these typical patterns, that they can be predictable and boring. But I think what makes a really great romance novel is the way that these writers use the tropes in interesting ways, or subvert them. If you can think of it, there’s probably a romance novel about it. Oops, there’s only one bed. This is one of my personal favorite tropes is a twist on forced proximity. Characters find themselves in very close quarters, where inevitably sparks start to fly. Why choose is the porkulus dose of the romance world. Sometimes the best way to resolve a love triangle is by turning it into a circle, where everyone is invited to play. Oops, we lost one spice level. There’s a really wide spectrum. You can range from really low heat or no spice, what might also be called kisses. Only then you start to get into what we call closed door or fade to Black. These books go right up to the moment of intimacy, and then you get into what we call open door, which is more explicit. And sometimes these can get very high heat or spicy and even start verging into kink. There’s one thing that almost every romance novel has in common. It’s that no matter what the characters get up to in the end, it ends with a happily ever after. I say almost every romance novel. Sometimes you’re just happy for now.
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