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The Los Angeles Lakers and Memphis Grizzlies have been tied together for years. When Jerry West left the Lakers, he took over the Grizzlies. When the Lakers needed a Gasol brother to pair with Kobe Bryant, they landed Pau from the Grizzlies, and the Grizzlies, in turn, swiped the then-lesser known Marc Gasol from the Lakers in the process. The Lakers have employed two former Grizzlies head coaches, Lionel Hollins and David Fizdale, in recent years. When the two teams met in January, the Grizzlies infamously scuffled with Fox Sports analyst Shannon Sharpe.

Yet despite those ties and feuds, the Lakers and Grizzlies have never actually faced off in the postseason. Until now. When the Lakers defeated the Minnesota Timberwolves in the first game of the Western Conference Play-In Tournament, they clinched the No. 7 seed and the right to face the Grizzlies in the first round.

Only five No. 7 seeds have ever beaten their No. 2 seeded opponents in the first round, but the Lakers are no ordinary No. 7 seed. With LeBron James and Anthony Davis in place, the Lakers might have the two best players in this series. They are now 19-8 since they reconstructed their roster at the deadline. This is no mismatch. The Lakers are a former champion that has all of the tools they'll need to knock off the second-best regular-season team in the Western Conference. But will they do so? Here are the biggest storylines to watch in this series.

(2) Memphis Grizzlies vs. (7) Los Angeles Lakers

Lakers lead 1-0

All times Eastern

  • Game 1 (at MEM): Lakers 128, Grizzlies 112
  • Game 2 (at MEM): Wednesday, April 19 | 7:30 p.m. | TV: TNT | Live stream: TNT app  
  • Game 3 (at LAL): Saturday, April 22 | 10 p.m. | TV: ESPN | Live stream: fuboTV (try for free)    
  • Game 4 (at LAL): Monday, April 24 | TBD | TV: TBD   
  • Game 5* (at MEM): Wednesday, April 26 | TBD | TV: TBD
  • Game 6* (at LAL): Friday, April 28 | TBD | TV: TBD
  • Game 7* (at MEM): Sunday, April 30 | TBD | TV: TBD

*If necessary

Top Storylines

1. Can the Grizzlies stay out of foul trouble?

By the time you finish this sentence, Jaren Jackson Jr. will have been charged with his second foul of the series. OK, that might be a slight exaggeration, but foul trouble has been a major problem throughout Jackson's career. He may have dipped to a career-best 4.6 fouls per 36 minutes over the past two seasons, but that's hardly an acceptable figure for a player of his importance. Jackson is probably going to win Defensive Player of the Year. If he doesn't, it will be because he didn't play enough minutes. That flaw has plagued him throughout his postseason career. In 17 playoff games, Jackson has reached 30 minutes of playing time just five times.

This would be dangerous against any opponent. It's series-threatening against the Lakers. Los Angeles attempts the most free throws in the NBA this season (26.6 per game), and the Lakers don't give those fouls up on the other end either, as their opponents attempt the fewest (20.8). There's no easy way of avoiding these fouls, either. The Lakers attempted the fourth-most shots in the restricted area in the NBA this season. Their goal offensively is to get to the line, and that will be especially important in this matchup in particular.

The Grizzlies have survived Jackson's foul-induced absences in the past because of their usual depth. But former reserve forward Kyle Anderson now plays for the Timberwolves, and both Brandon Clarke and Steven Adams are injured. The Grizzlies no longer have an army of viable defenders to throw at James and Davis. If Jackson leaves the game, Memphis will have to entrust rim-protecting duties to Xavier Tillman, Santi Aldama, David Roddy and Kenneth Lofton Jr. Only Tillman has even stepped on the playoff floor among the quartet.

If all of this sounds a bit familiar to you, well, it should. The Timberwolves dominated the Lakers with Karl-Anthony Towns on the floor on Tuesday, but foul trouble eventually forced him to the bench. In the 12 minutes Minnesota was forced to play without him, the Lakers outscored the Timberwolves by 26 points. That's almost impossible in an overtime game, but few teams have ever done a better job of playing for whistles than the 2022-23 Lakers. They'll want to treat Jackson the way they treated Towns, and his history suggests they'll succeed.

2. Be careful what you wish for

Dillon Brooks is quite familiar with the idea of poking the bear thanks to his longstanding feud with the Golden State Warriors. On Tuesday, he figured he might as well poke a GOAT while he was at it. "I wouldn't mind playing LeBron (James) in a seven-game series," Brooks said. "The legacy is there. First time back in the playoffs, knock him out right away."

For the better part of two decades, asking for LeBron was a postseason death sentence. It's just not fully clear if that's true anymore. The similarities between the 2021 Lakers and their modern counterparts are starting to get eery. In both cases, James returned from a foot injury late in the season. In both cases, he needed a clutch 3-pointer just to earn the No. 7 seed in the play-in round. The 2021 Suns held James to just 23.3 points per game in their six-game series, and most of those points came in garbage time. The man who once reached the Finals with Boobie Gibson as his sidekick was helpless the moment Anthony Davis went down against Phoenix.

For now, we can assume Davis will remain healthy. But James has a difficult task ahead of him in facing Brooks head-to-head. The Memphis stopper held James to an 8-for-21 shooting night in their only matchup this season. James scored 37 points against Memphis in a game last season... but that came with Brooks out. Brooks is deceptively strong and has a low enough center of gravity to prevent post-bullying from James. Few defenders do a better job of forcing him into jumpers. The looming specter of Jackson's rim protection will only add to those efforts, and the Grizzlies, at least with their starters on the floor, are probably going to feel comfortable switching the James-Davis pick-and-roll and trusting their back-line help to hold up against the very slight mismatches doing so would create.

If this were 2018, all of that would be irrelevant. This is LeBron James we're talking about here. He was so good he won Finals MVP with Kawhi Leonard guarding him. He was so good that someone else won Finals MVP for guarding him and holding him to "just" 35.8 points per game. But the operative word there is "was," because as dominant as James remains, he isn't nearly as defense-proof as he was at his peak. He has athletic contemporaries now. His stamina is no longer limitless. He is, in short, mortal.

Or at least we think he is, but we can't be certain because, again, this is LeBron James we're talking about here. We might assume that 2021 was the new normal, but in the grand scheme of his playoff history, it might also be the aberration. If anyone was going to punish the brash newcomer in his 20th season, it would be James. We'll know pretty quickly which version of LeBron we're getting here. He doesn't quite have to reach his 2018 heights to win this series, but if he's anything like he was in 2021, this thing will be over in five games.

3. Do the Lakers have 82-game players or 16-game players?

When the Lakers won the championship in 2020, they did so with a group of role players that rarely needed the ball, made their open shots and could credibly defend multiple positions. These are, in the wise words of Draymond Green, "16-game players." Soon after winning that title, they dismantled their championship team in favor of high-usage ball handlers and one-dimensional defenders. These are "82-game players," and while they might flash gaudier numbers than their 16-game counterparts, they have far less utility in a postseason setting. Who needs a high-usage ball-handler when James is going to serve as the full-time playoff point guard?

Russell Westbrook was, emphatically, an 82-game player. The Lakers had a dozen other excuses to trade him, but the theoretical logic of attaching draft capital to do so was to surround James and Davis with role players that actually fit alongside them as the 2020 group did. It isn't fully clear if they succeeded.

D'Angelo Russell is a far more sensible secondary ball-handler next to James than Westbrook was because he can actually make his 3-pointers. Malik Beasley is probably the best high-volume 3-point shooter the Lakers have employed since signing James. Jarred Vanderbilt is the sort of multi-positional defender they once had in abundance. All three fill valuable niches on the Laker roster.

And all three have highly exploitable postseason flaws. Russell can't defend on the ball. Beasley can't defend anywhere. Vanderbilt is a poor shooter, yes, but he also has a nasty case of butter fingers which can render him unusable in the all-important dunker's spot. Working around these vulnerabilities is doable enough with proper lineup construction in the regular season, but the playoffs are almost entirely about exploiting weaknesses. We saw this in the Minnesota game. Vanderbilt couldn't hold onto the ball. Russell shot 1-of-9 from the floor, which sadly isn't too far off from his prior playoff performances. Darvin Ham ultimately didn't trust either of them to close the game. Dennis Schroder and Rui Hachimura did instead. That worked out fine against the short-handed Timberwolves. It's a much tougher sell against Memphis, who can exploit Schroder's size and Hachimura's inconsistent defense.

The Lakers can't expect 21 Schroder points every night. Russell's secondary shot creation is going to be critical, especially with Brooks hounding James. Vanderbilt holds an even more important defensive position in this series. He's probably going to get the first crack at guarding Ja Morant, and physically, he might be the only Laker capable of manning that job. The downside of giving him that assignment is that it also allows Jackson to guard him on the other end. We're using the word "guard" quite loosely there, because in reality, Jackson would be ignoring Vanderbilt and serving as a full-time rover. Allowing him to do so is going to have serious offensive repercussions for the Lakers. Will he make it worthwhile on the defensive end? Only time will tell.

Whatever you think of the 2023 Lakers, they aren't their 2020 selves. This isn't a roster with endless lineup flexibility that can tinker with matchups and punt early games for the sake of experimentation. James, Davis and Austin Reaves can hold up on both ends of a playoff series. Everybody else is a question mark. The Lakers are going to need at least two more 16-game players just to round out a five-man lineup. They'll realistically need another two or three to fill out their rotation. Schroder and Hachimura filled two of those slots on Tuesday. They desperately need Russell and Vanderbilt to step into two more of them against Memphis. They just don't have alternatives lying around on their bench.

Series pick

If the Grizzlies were at full strength, they'd probably be the pick here. As it stands, the potential drop-off from Jackson to the rest of the Grizzlies bigs is so massive defensively that you almost have to pick the Lakers if you expect them to draw enough fouls. Ultimately, that's where I landed. The Memphis starters might win their minutes, but the Lakers will do more than enough damage when they rest to make up the difference. Pick: Lakers in 6