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Well, the National Basketball Association got their wish as the Los Angeles Lakers have made the playoffs. It took an overtime win against a shorthanded Minnesota Timberwolves team, but the Lakers pulled off a 108-102 win.

With last night’s win the Lakers become the 7th seed in the Western conference, and they’ll face the Memphis Grizzlies in the actual first round of the playoffs.

Lebron James and Anthony Davis both posted double-doubles for the Lakers last night. James had 30 points and 10 rebounds while Davis scored 24 points and grabbed 14 rebounds. Both James and Davis played a lot of minutes against the Timberwolves last night. James logged 45 minutes while Davis was on the court for 43 minutes. The Lakers don’t open there playoff series against Memphis until Sunday, so the large number of minutes played by James and Davis shouldn’t affect them with three full days off.

Even with the loss last night Minnesota still has a chance to grab the 8th seed in the Western conference. The Timberwolves will face the winner of tonight’s play-in game between the Oklahoma City Thunder and the New Orleans Pelicans.

In the first Eastern conference play-in game last night the Atlanta Hawks pulled off an upset as they beat the Miami Heat 116-105. The win moves Atlanta into the 7th seed in the Eastern conference and they get a 1st round playoff match up against the Boston Celtics.

Atlanta was led by Trae Young who scored 25 points. All four of the Atlanta players that came off the bench last night scored in double figures. Clint Capela may have only scored 4 points in last night’s game, but he contributed 21 rebounds for the Hawks.

Just like the Timberwolves, Miami isn’t out of the playoffs just yet. They’ll have a chance to get the 8th and final playoff spot in the Eastern conference as they’ll face the winner of tonight’s game between the Chicago Bulls and the Toronto Raptors on Friday.

You’d think by now that people would stop overlooking the Tampa Bays Rays, but I guess when you’re in the same division as a big market teams like the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox as well as the up-and-coming Toronto Blue Jays it’s bound to happen.

So while nobody may have been paying attention the Rays have gotten off to an 11-0 start as they picked up their 11th win last night by beating the Red Sox 7-2.

When Tampa Bay got out the gate on such a roll immediately everyone wanted to point out they had had played the Detroit Tigers, Washington Nationals and the Oakland A’s before this series against the Red Sox. No matter who they’ve beaten 11 straight wins to start a season is a great start and there’s nothing that the Rays can do about the schedule they just have to play the games how they were laid out for them. Don’t forget that this season the schedule is balanced, so you face every team the same number of times unlike in years past where you played the teams in your division more than the other teams in the league.

Now the Rays may have just hit their first bit of adversity this season as their big off season signing Zac Eflin was placed on the IL with Back tightness. Eflin had was off to a 2-0 start with an ERA of 3.27 in the 11 innings he had pitched this season. Tampa Bay signed Eflin as a free agent this past off season. Eflin received the biggest deal in Tampa Bay history as he signed a 3-year $40 million dollar deal.

Tampa bay hasn’t announced who will take Eflin’s spot in the starting rotation, but top prospect Taj Bradley was called up from Triple-A Durham to fill Eflin’s roster spot.

Bradley who is ranked anywhere from 20th to 44th overall as a prospect had made 2 starts for the Durham Bulls. He pitched just 7 innings and was 1-0 with an ERA of 5.14.

It would appear as though Bradley will be the pitcher to move into Eflin’s spot in the starting rotation, but you never know with the Rays as they’ve been very creative with who’s going to start games. I guess will just have to wait and see when what would be Eflin’s spot in the rotation comes up.

Before we wrap the blog up for the day let me know how long you think that Tampa Bay’s winning streak will continue. They have two more games at home against Boston before they head out on a six-game road trip. The first three games of that road trip are in Toronto against the Blue Jays and then they head to Cincinnati to face the Reds for three games.

Remember that you can find me on Twitter, I’m @Burketime.