With a four-game road trip set to start, the Lakers can move up in the West if they stack some wins and get some help.
With the Western Conference being a tight-knit race, this will be a series looking at the standings and games to watch as the Lakers look to secure home court and move up the standings.
The Lakers begin the week in the fourth seed but are just a game behind the Denver Nuggets for the third in the West and two games back of the Houston Rockets for the second spot.
With a four-game road trip beginning on Monday in Orlando, this is a great chance for the Lakers to gain ground in the standings. While they are behind a couple of teams and need some help to jump up to the second seed, Los Angeles is in a decent spot.
Here’s a look at the current playoff standings in the middle of the conference:
2. Rockets — 46-26
3. Nuggets — 45-27
4. Lakers — 43-27
5. Grizzlies — 43-28
Los Angeles has Rui Hachimura and LeBron James back, meaning they are at full strength, which is vital, given that there are 12 games left to play.
If they can have a winning record during this road trip, they should return to L.A. and be in a great spot to do some damage to the Rockets during their matchup against them on the final day of March. Before we get that far ahead, we have games to play right now that matter.
Here are the matchups that Lakers fans should keep an eye on.
Monday
Bulls at Nuggets — The Bulls embarrassed the Lakers last week, but now they can do them a favor by beating the Denver Nuggets on Monday. They’ll need to follow the recipe they executed against the Lakers to accomplish that goal: lots of scoring by Colby White, Josh Giddey and rookie Matas Buzelis.
Tuesday
Hawks at Rockets — Houston has a soft schedule this week, playing zero teams that are above .500. The Hawks will be at home, so if Trae Young and Dyson Daniels can have good nights, perhaps they can pull off the upset.
Grizzlies at Jazz — With the Jazz tanking to the point where the NBA has had to fine them, it’s hard to imagine the Grizzlies losing to them even if Utah is at home playing Memphis.
As far-fetched as a Jazz win may seem, it can happen if Walker Kessler has a great game or potentially Memphis falls for the trap game effect due to the quality of the opponent.
Luckily for the Lakers, since they’ve played two fewer games than the teams surrounding them in the standings, they can still move up in the West regardless of the outcome of these games so long as they dominate their matchups.
You can follow Edwin on Twitter at @ECreates88 or on Bluesky at @ecreates88.bsky.social.