The Lakers Final Stretch
The last 4 games of the NBA regular season are the most important for the Los Angeles Lakers.
By Gary Guillory
LeBron James and Anthony Davis are pushing for a playoff spot and starting to look like forces to be reckoned with via Official Lakers Website
Following a solid victory against the Minnesota Timberwolves, the Los Angeles Lakers defeated the Houston Rockets in a blowout victory. Anthony Davis’s dominance continued scoring 40 points, LeBron James dropped 18 points and Rui Hachimura scored 20 points off the bench.
With four games remaining, the Lakers improved to two games over a winning percentage of .500 and are now tied with the New Orleans Pelicans for the 7th seed in the Western Conference. The tiebreaker against the Pelicans who have won the last six of their seven games now belongs to the Lakers.
It appears that the four teams will compete for the 5-8 seeds in the West which are the Clippers, Warriors, Lakers and Pelicans. The Lakers beat the Warriors and Pelicans in a tiebreaker, but the Clippers don’t have the tiebreaker. But if the Lakers win all 4 remaining games then they will move up to the 5th seed and will face the Phoenix Suns in the first round.
LeBron James expressed his thoughts on the team's chemistry saying, “We just want to put ourselves in the position to compete for a championship [...] These last four games are very important for our team, not only wins and losses but also the chemistry side as well. We need to continue to build what we’ve been building over the last month or so. We’ll see what happens.”, viaSpectrum SportsNet.
Anthony Davis continues to dominate as a huge factor in the Lakers recent wins via Official Lakers Website
Following the Rockets' victory, Davis discussed his emphasis on being aggressive and controlling every possession with Spectrum SportsNet's Mike Trudell. “Just having fun playing the game. I know what’s at stake for us and trying to do my part for us as one of the leaders of the team. My job is to go out there and to make everybody else job easier with my scoring, defense and rebounding. The more aggressive I am coming out, the game opens up for everyone else on the team and that’s what I’m trying to do, come out with an aggressive mindset and try to dominate each possession.”
Every team in the Western Conference will find playing Davis and the Lakers very challenging if they can maintain their current level of performance. The confidence in the locker room that these Lakers can compete with anyone in the NBA is growing as the momentum grows.
D'Angelo Russell has been a integral piece to the Lakers offense and is in hopes for a playoff run via Official Lakers Website
Even though the Lakers were able to win another game, once again a probable injury was the focus of the game as point guard D'Angelo Russell sat out the second half. Since Russell was acquired by the Lakers at this year's trade deadline he has missed several games due to injury.
But, following the game, Lakers head coach Darvin Johnson did not appear very worried, calling the decision to bench Russell in the second half a precautionary one while pointing out that Russell could have continued if the team absolutely needed him to.
“Yeah, it was definitely precautionary [...] He could’ve continued the game if we needed him to, but we just got the bodies we have available to us now we just didn’t wanna risk it.” via Spectrum SportsNet.
The Lakers showed they have the necessary elements to complete the task, but it remains to be seen whether Darvin Ham and his team can it together in the little time they have.
With only four games remaining in the 2022–23 campaign, the Lakers have a chance to secure the 5th spot in the Western Conference standing and avoid the play-in tournament. The Lakers are warning the rest of the NBA to be on the lookout with Anthony Davis performing at this level, Los Angeles can compete with anyone.