LOS ANGELES — The bad ole’ days for this Los Angeles Lakers season are far behind them, rendered irrelevant first with a series of trades to remake the Lakers on the fly and secondly with wins against the Memphis Grizzlies and Golden State Warriors in the first two rounds of the playoffs.
The last-second three from Indiana, the blown call in Boston, the missed free throws in Philadelphia, the load management no-shows and the no-spacing nightmares all erased by a surge of competence that put them here, Saturday night, hosting a game in the Western Conference finals.
But even though those moments are forgotten, the scars from them are still here, visible in the heavy legs, the heaving chests and the flat jump shots and the rimmed-out free throws.
