Lakers schedule lookahead: Upcoming slate presents huge opportunity

The Los Angeles Lakers are in the thick of a crowded Western Conference playoff picture. Los Angeles has the potential to climb several more spots in the standings but need to take care of business in order to do so.

Los Angeles is the ninth seed in the West after losing to the New York Knicks on Sunday. The team is tied with both the New Orleans Pelicans and Oklahoma City Thunder and is half a game behind the eighth-seeded Mavericks. They are 1.5 games behind the seventh-seeded Timberwolves and two games behind the sixth-seeded Warriors.

The Lakers are going to need to string together some wins in order to climb this Western Conference ladder. Luckily, the upcoming slate of games on the Lakers schedule presents a huge opportunity to do just that.

Lakers schedule lookahead: An opportunistic stretch

The next eight games on the Lakers schedule could yield some great results that see the team jump into a fantastic playoff spot with a handful of games remaining in the season. Here are the Lakers’ next eight:

• March 14 at New Orleans Pelicans
• March 15 at Houston Rockets
• March 17 vs Dallas Mavericks
• March 19 vs Orlando Magic
• March 22 vs Phoenix Suns
• March 24 vs Oklahoma City Thunder
• March 26 vs Chicago Bulls
• March 28 at Chicago Bulls

Talk about a great stretch that can catapult the Lakers in the standings. While LA is definitely not going to win all of the games, the team definitely can put together a great record and a case can be made for each game.

Four of these games are against teams who are better off losing basketball games down the stretch. The Rockets, Magic and Bulls are not really in a spot to contend and each team could shut it down at various points.

Oklahoma City is a team that is already starting to slow things down with Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. Throw them into that group of teams and it is not absurd to think the Lakers could go 4-1 in those five.

Then there are two games with potentially huge playoff implications. They have the New Orleans Pelicans, who don’t have Zion Williamson and have been terrible as of late. Then they have the Dallas Mavericks, who have also been struggling and have seen Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving miss back-to-back games.

If the Mavericks don’t get their stars back then the Lakers could go 2-0 in those games. That would be massive but even a 1-1 split would be fine.

Then they have the one true test against the Phoenix Suns. While Kevin Durant is out, Phoenix is still a very hard team to beat. We will give them the benefit of the doubt and assume they beat the Lakers.

There is a real chance that the Lakers could go 6-2 in these eight games. Even 5-3 would likely be enough as it would put LA at even .500. Right now, even .500 is good enough for seventh in the West.

Los Angeles needs to take advantage of this stretch of games if the team wants any legitimate chance of making the NBA Playoffs this season.