• Play-in The new NBA format criticized by LeBron James and Doncic

The NBA could not have imagined a better premiere for the new 'play-in' format than a duel between LeBron James and Stephen Curry, the two phenomena that have marked this era. James is the last step of evolution, and Curry, the first of the revolution. LeBron elevated the former and Curry has defined the new.

For four years in a row they fought for the ring

and now they will do it for one of the last two playoff tickets.



The new NBA play-in is

a home run between the four teams that go from seventh to tenth of each conference

. The Lakers and the Warriors, seventh and eighth in the Western Conference, will meet this Wednesday for the first playoff berth. The loser will have a second chance against the winner of the duel between Memphis (9th) and San Antonio (10th).



The first game pits the seventh ranked against the eighth and the winner takes the first pass into play; the next match, the ninth against the tenth; and in the last, the loser of the first duel is measured to the winner of the second by the other ticket.



For the Lakers it is

an additional sentence for the injuries of James and Anthony Davis

.

The Los Angeles team started with the imposing gesture of last season but, like all the teams that reached the last Conference Finals (Heat, Nuggets, and Celtics), they have paid the toll of the shortest break in history between seasons.


Injuries


Davis was out for nine weeks with a soleus and Achilles tendon problem, and James suffered the most serious injury of his career,

a high ankle sprain

for which he has missed 26 of 28 games in two months. . It was his first contact with mortality but, although he assures that he will not be one hundred percent again, it is difficult to imagine something like this of an athlete who challenges the passage of time like few others.



In the best of cases, it is also an opportunity to win filming, as both the two stars and

Dennis Schröder

, the third sword in attack, they have returned too much trouble. Time also to calibrate that internal rotation that has moved so much in recent weeks, with Marc Gasol responding to the signing of Drummond on the track; or an attack that yes, falls without James and Davis, but that with them has not managed to pass the average. Of course the playoffs, and LeBron with them, were always a different animal.



For the Warriors, on the other hand, the play-in is almost a success in a season that was reborn without a future due to

another serious injury to Klay Thompson

. And if it has been possible to get here it has been thanks to the frenzy of Stephen Curry who, after a blank year and three seasons with Kevin Durant, has uncorked that scoring vertigo that was not seen since his last MVP season.



While pushing the boundaries of the court with unlikely pitches (by distance and playing situation), Stephen Curry has joined

Michael Jordan, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Wilt Chamberlain

as the only players to have won multiple rings, MVP trophies and titles. top scorer.

Because the only thing human is appearance.



The two phenomena from Akron, Ohio, one by roots and the other by chance, resume in the new 'play-in' a rivalry that at its peak, the seventh game of the 2016 Finals,

brought together more than 30 million of people

.

A blessing for the NBA, as this second pandemic season is looking for new momentum.


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