Keep an eye on the Suns and Pelicans, those two have the toughest 10 game finishes in the West. They are going to face each other twice. The Suns have 6 games left against the top 4 seeds.
If things continue on as they have been, Golden State falls out of the Play In Game. The teams in front of us sport a last 10 game record of 6-4. We are 7-3. It has taken 10 games to make up one game in the standings. If that holds true moving forward, we will likely fall short of catching Sacramento or Phoenix unless we catch a break. I have not looked at anything Strength of Schedule related to see who might have a favorable SOS. Pretty silly we are even talking about having to play in an elimination game with this squad, but it is what it is. Getting to the 7th seed would probably make for a more potential successful run in the playoffs though. We'd likely have to go through Minnesota and OKC, and that seems more likely than going through Denver as an 8 seed. But the top 3 teams in the West are still juggling and all playing well. The only team in the Western Conference Top 10 not playing at least .500 ball is the Toilets. Sad.
clips got bailed out with a no-call to close the game and win by 1. denver loses to phx. without murray, denver is pretty meh. good thing the guy never misses a game or a shot against us.
So the Clips are the worst team in the Top 8 right now. It's pretty nuts how little ground we're able to make up despite having one of the best records in the league since January, but I can't be too mad given how the seas parted for us last year. Going to be rooting hard for one of the Thunder or Wolves to push hard for the 1 seed down the stretch.
If we make it in I want Denver round 1. Better to face them early and healthy, if we can’t beat them then we never were going to. If we did beat them… West is wide open.
Id pretty annoyed about the lack of acclaim if I was Murray. Jokic is deservedly getting attention as an all timer but for a team with very little depth it kind of remarkable how little pub Murray gets. He's an absolute ridiculous shot maker, great in the clutch, great PnR passer, and is not a defensive liability. See very little difference between him and a guy like Mitchell and frankly Denver as you mentioned looks like a totally middle of the pack team without him
It's the combination of a healthy Murray and Jokic that makes them special. Just like It's the combination of Lebron and AD. If I'm not mistaken, Murray was their best player against us in the bubble. Jokic has definitely elevated his game since then, but Jamal was always a problem.
Welp that sucked to see the Suns beat the Nuggets AGAIN in denver but of course the Nuggets sit murray for that game but if it was us? He'd jump out of a walking boot to drop 30 on us. Kings and Mavs tomorrow, at this point, I'm hoping for a Kings win as I'd rather not face them in the play-in, but then again, since Mavs won that first game and we're closer to passing the Kings than we are the Mavs, I'm also not minding another Mavs win here. Looks like Pels are gonna win a game that I had them losing as well - impressive that they're winning without Ingram too
i might be wrong, but i feel like the pels win without ingram pretty regularly. the guy they tend to be bad without is mccollum. anyway, not much has changed or will change. we're going to have to win two games just to make the playoffs.
Well things will get very interesting if we win the rest of the games on this road trip, and then head home for 3 important home games where we've been pretty good all year (Cavs, Wolves, Warriors). Lakers just need to continue focusing on themselves and let the rest play out...but ya it is not great that the Pels and Suns are beating teams they shouldn't
We just need to win our game tonight. Two teams ahead of us in the standings, play each other. Dall/Sac and Phoenix has OKC on the road, and then NO.
The Mavs might dictate who gets the 10th spot. They have 2 games left with both Golden State and Houston. Phoenix has 2 games left with Minn, No, and the Flippers, plus OKC, Sac and Cle Sac has road games against NY, Bos, OKC, home Dall, Phx and NO. NO has Bos, Orl, Phx twice, GS, Sac and the Lakers left. The Lakers definitely have a softer schedule to close, but Minn, GS and NO, could be critical to moving up to 7th. or 6th, if we go on a nice win streak like 8-1.
Suns lost , Denver losing to Minnesota by 25 and not going come back without Murray. So OKC is in 1 st place.
Still 2 back of the Suns and Kings (Actually 3 games back cause they have the tie breaker). Gotta win the next 3 straight.
We're going to end up 9th, which isn't good. Still a chance we miss the PO's entirely. The team will likely end up with 46-47 wins and have to end up in the play-in; that's crazy. Historically, I thought it was 45 wins that usually got you into the 8th seed. Next year, it will get worse, too. Memphis will be back with Ja healthy and a lotto pick this summer & Houston will likely be improved competing for a higher slot. Just insane.
I haven’t been optimistic about getting into the top 8, but now I actually think there’s a very real shot at the 8 seed. Phoenix has a gauntlet to the finish line. Maybe they hang on to the 8 seed, but they would have outperform how they’ve played these first 74 games.
