Lakers’ Hopes For Strong Finish To Season Clash With Tough Schedule

If the red-hot Lakers hope to repeat the 18–8 post All-Star run that carried them to last season’s conference finals, they’re going to have to do it amidst a brutal 12-game schedule where they will be the underdogs in 10 games.

The Lakers will not only be underdogs in 10 of their next 12 games but 9 of those 10 games will be against those same Western Conference teams who are tied or ahead of them in the standings based on total losses for season.
Those 2 games vs. the Warriors, 2 games vs. the Kings, and 5 games vs. the Suns, Clippers, Nuggets, Thunder, and Timberwolves will be the measuring stick that tells us whether the Lakers’ championship hopes are realistic.

Here’s the schedule for the next 12 games that’s likely to determine whether the Lakers are legitimate championship contenders or simply pretenders. The Spurs and Wizards are the only games where Lakers would be favored.

The problem the Lakers face is not the 3.5 games that separates them from 5th or 6th place in the West and an automatic playoff seed, it’s the 5 teams they have to climb over to get to 5th or 6th place with only 26 games left.

The Lakers’ next 12 games will decide their season. They must finish the next 12 games with an 8–4 record, which means winning 6 out of the 10 games in which they will be underdogs, an almost impossible challenge.
Frankly, the Lakers need to win more than they lose of the next 12 games to still have any realistic chance to make the top-6 in the West and get an automatic playoff seed. Finishing under .500 will doom them to the play-in.

The Lakers will need to come out of the All-Star break playing their best basketball of the season with their new starting lineup and rotation continuing to be the offensive juggernaut that’s found out how to win.

Tonight’s road game against the Warriors is a perfect example of the tough challenge the Lakers will face over the next 12 games. After 7 days off, L.A. is still struggling with injuries as LeBron James and Chris Wood will be out.

The Los Angeles Lakers start their challenging 12-game stretch with back-to-back road games against the Warriors and Spurs, missing James, Wood, Vincent, and Vanderbilt and with Christie and Reddish still questionable.
The Lakers and Warriors are tied for 9th in the West as each have 26 losses but Golden State has been one of the hottest teams in the NBA having won 8 of their last 10 games. Lakers won only match this season 145–144 in OT.

The Lakers desperately need to win tonight’s game against the Warriors, who will clearly be favored with the game in San Francisco and LeBron James out. Win tonight, and Lakers go up 2–0 vs. Warriors for the season.
Split the remaining 2 games with Golden State and Los Angeles would win the season series 3–1 and get home court advantage over the Warriors should the two teams end up meeting in the Western Conference playoffs.

At this point in the season, the Lakers currently own tie breakers against the Warriors, Thunder, Suns, Clippers, and Pelicans while the Nuggets, Timberwolves, Mavs, and Kings now own tie breakers over the Lakers.
How the Los Angeles Lakers fare over the next 12 games, including 9 games against their direct Western Conference competitors, will surely determine whether they’re legitimate contenders or simply pretenders to the throne.

The good news for the Lakers is they have the 4th easiest remaining schedule in the NBA for their last 26 games, which means after the next 12 extremely tough games, L.A.’s schedule down the stretch will be easier.
If LeBron and AD can remain healthy and D’Angelo Russell, Austin Reaves, and Rui Hachimura elevate their games to another level, the Lakers could be the lethally dangerous team nobody wants to meet in the playoffs.

The Lakers must play the best basketball of their season over the next 12 games if they want to have any chance to meet the Boston Celtics in the 2024 Finals in an epic battle to see which team wins their 18th NBA title.