Coming off of a loss in the most important regular-season game of the season, the Los Angeles Lakers took care of business against the Phoenix Suns and comfortably beat the team that many are penciling in to represent the West in the NBA Finals.
The win moved the Lakers to a 42-39 record, guaranteeing that Los Angeles will at least finish with a winning record. This highlights a massive turnaround for the purple and gold, who started the season horribly with a 2-10 record.
The Lake Show has already clinched a spot in the NBA Play-In Tournament and is still hoping to climb into the top six in the West. LA needs to win its last game and needs the Golden State Warriors to lose to the Portland Trail Blazers. Unfortunately, Friday presented the best day for the Lakers to usurp the Warriors until the Kings decided to rest most of their starters in a Warriors win.
While a top-six seed might be a bit unrealistic at this point, Los Angeles did clinch a massively important playoff seed with the win over the Suns.
Lakers are guaranteed to be a seventh or eighth seed in the Western Conference.
No matter what happens in the final stretch of the season the Los Angeles Lakers are going to be a seventh or eighth-seed in the West. This is hugely important as it gives the Lakers two shots at making the playoffs as a play-in team instead of having two win back-to-back games to get in.
A seventh seed would be more beneficial as the first play-in game would take place in Los Angeles but at this rate, it is great news that LA is at least locked into one of the top two play-in seeds.
The Lakers have the same record as the New Orleans Pelicans with both teams having one game left to play. LA has a 1.5-game advantage over the Minnesota Timberwolves, who have two games remaining.
If the Lakers win the final game of the year against the Utah Jazz then the seventh seed is locked down regardless of what happens. However, even if LA loses, a seventh or eighth seed is guaranteed because the Timberwolves and Pelicans play each other in the final game of the season.
Let’s assume the Timberwolves beat the San Antonio Spurs on Saturday because that is what should happen. That would give Minnesota a 41-40 record heading into the final game of the season. New Orleans would be 42-39 and we are assuming the Lakers lose and finished 42-40.
A Pelicans win would make them the seventh seed but keep the Timberwolves one game behind the Lakers, resulting in Los Angeles being the eighth seed. A Timberwolves win would give all three teams a 42-40 record, which would then create the need for a three-way tiebreaker.
In that instance, the record in games between all teams involved is the tiebreaker. Minnesota has the best record (assuming they beat New Orleans) at 4-2. Los Angeles is 4-3. New Orleans would be 2-5. This would make the T-Wolves the seventh seed, the Lakers the eighth seed and the Pelicans the ninth seed.
So the math is simple: a Lakers loss (and Timberwolves win against the Spurs) guarantees that the Lakers will be the eighth seed regardless of what happens in the Minnesota-New Orleans game. A Lakers win locks them in as the seventh seed.
Either way, they will have two cracks at getting into the NBA Playoffs from the play-in.