With just under two months to go in the 2019-20 NBA regular season, the Los Angeles Lakers are 43-12. As they look to surge heading into the postseason, they have a great chance of reaching a gaudy milestone
Lakers Nation, the 2020 NBA Playoffs are not that far away! With just 27 games left, our beloved Purple and Gold stand at 43-12, which is a dominant regular season record.
The Los Angeles Lakers hold a comfortable cushion over the Los Angeles Clippers and Denver Nuggets, who are currently duking it out for second place in the Western Conference.
Although it’s important to make sure your guys are healthy and fresh enough for the playoffs, I’ve always believed that you need to start playing your best ball heading into the postseason. Not only is momentum important, but those winning habits you establish when you’re starting to peak are that slight edge that add up to a championship.
As it stands, the Lakers have a great chance of reaching 65 wins. This milestone isn’t an arbitrary one. When you win 65 games, you not only stand a great chance of winning the NBA title, but it also means you’ve been consistently dominant throughout the season.
Only three Lakers teams have won at least 65 regular season games. The first, of course, was the 1971-72 squad that won 33 games in a row, a record that may never be surpassed. They finished 69-13 en route to winning their first world championship since moving to L.A. a dozen years before.
The 1986-87 Lakers won 65 games and were perhaps the best of the Showtime-era squads. Driven by a stunning loss to the Houston Rockets the previous year in the Western Conference Finals, this edition of the Purple and Gold added Mychal Thompson at midseason to bolster their frontcourt. They waltzed their way to their fourth championship of the decade, losing only three games in the postseason.
We all remember the 1999-2000 Lakers, which was Phil Jackson’s first year as head coach in L.A. They won 67 games and had several double-digit winning streaks, including a 16-game streak at midseason and a 19-game streak in February and early March. It all culminated in the first NBA championship of the Kobe Bryant era.
For this Lakers team to finish 65-17, they would need to win 22 of their remaining 27 games. Here’s why they stand a great chance of doing just that.