Tonight’s Game Against 76ers Is Critical
By Hannah Kulik
The end of a long regular season is well within sight with the Lakers locked in one of the tightest and most gripping races they have experienced in years. Laker fans are on the edge of their seats, waiting to see how the team will fare and hoping for the best. Nightly, we rush to look at the standings, paying particular attention to the teams the Lakers are desperately trying to overtake. Every game is critical. Every win or loss from now on could determine the Lakers’ future. They are in fourth place right now, but suddenly, they are on the verge of taking over the third position. Surprisingly, this could happen as soon as Sunday night.
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Unfortunately, the race the Lakers are trying so hard to win is the one for the worst record in the league. While the team used to contend annually for championships, these days they jockey for position in the upcoming draft which is determined by how poorly you performed in the preceding season.
For many months, the Lakers have enjoyed the fourth worst record in the NBA. The position seemed secure, but we had to be careful not to slip to number 5, and at all costs, we had to avoid climbing to number 6. For the first time in my life, I started to cheer for the Orlando Magic and the Sacramento Kings. Those are the two teams with records slightly better than the Lakers. They consistently had four or five more wins so the team’s prospects for ending the season with the fourth worst record seemed solid.
However, the Magic started to slip, and we started to panic as the margin between the two teams fell to 2 ½ games. Fortunately, the difference in the win column is back to five games. Orlando has much better talent than the Lakers, so we can relax a bit knowing how unlikely it is that the Lakers could “fall” into the fifth position.
But, could the Lakers “improve” to the third slot before the end of the season? The teams just ahead of them for most of the year, with worse records, have been the Philadelphia 76ers and the Minnesota Timberwolves. With the New York Knicks firmly established as the worst team in the league (though you’d never know it when they played the Lakers this year), it was a race between Philadelphia, Minnesota and the Lakers for the next three slots. The Lakers seemed secure in the fourth spot, but unexpectedly, that could change as early as Sunday night.
When fans looked at the standings this morning, imagine their excitement when they realized that the 76ers have caught the Lakers. Both teams now have 17 wins. That makes Sunday night’s contest at the Staples Center one of the most important games of the year if you are a Lakers fan. If they can somehow manage to end the season with the third worst record, in the parallel universe that passes for the NBA lottery, it significantly increases the team’s chances of ending up with the number 1 pick in the next draft. Even if that does not happen, the higher the draft choice, the better the odds the Lakers will be in a position to select the player who can help them most in their rebuilding efforts.
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The Lakers have to lose the game Sunday night. Let’s hope Robert Sacre gets off the bench and plays the whole game. Ryan Kelly should start and play at least 35 minutes. Ronnie Price is a tough guy, and while he is injured, maybe Byron Scott can convince him to return just to play in this one game. Wayne Ellington should play 40 minutes and so should Wesley Johnson. Since NBA players like to sit out games because they are tired, I suggest that Ed Davis take Sunday night’s game off (which shouldn’t be hard since Scott doesn’t play him much anyway). There has been some suggestion that Jordan Clarkson has hit a “rookie wall,” so maybe he would be refreshed after sitting this one out.
If the Lakers lose to the 76ers, the rest of this season promises to be an exciting one for Laker fans as the team is locked in a close race in which every game counts.
As we relish the excitement of knowing our team is once again playing meaningful games in March and April, do we even dare turn our thoughts to yet another thrilling yet previously unanticipated prospect? Are we audacious enough to dream we could actually overtake the Timberwolves before the season ends?