There, there. All better.
The Lakers recovered from a knee scrape of a playoff opener Tuesday to leap up and kick the stunned Minnesota Timberwolves in the teeth.
Now, now. That wasn’t so hard, was it?
In turning a dread-filled Crypto.com Arena into a place of joyous healing, the wounded Lakers survived a first cut, tied an opening series and saved an entire season with a 94-85 victory over Minnesota in Game 2 of the first round of the NBA playoffs.
What a difference an elbow makes.
One game after being wadded up and tossed aside like a hot dog wrapper by a Timberwolves team that was just hungrier, the Lakers pushed and shoved and fought their way into personifying a must win.