Are the Los Angeles Lakers the fourth-best team in the Western Conference? If you asked anyone that question about four weeks ago, fans and experts alike (probably rightfully) would have scoffed. At that point, the Lakers were bumbling along, entering the All-Star break on a sour note and starting the post-All Star homestretch even worse. At 34-24, they weren't a bad team, but they looked uninspired.
Since then, the team has rattled off an 8-1 stretch, playing their best defense of the year by a wide margin and handling high-level opponents with relative ease. Wins over Minnesota, New York, and Denver punctuate the past eight days and have fans rethinking the ceiling of this Lakers team.
At no point this year have the Lakers looked more in sync than they do now, particularly on the defensive end — where they are posting a top-10 defensive rating (!) over the past 10 games. The defense has been so staunch that these Lakers are no longer a bottom-10 defense in the league for the season at large. Small victories!
Now, is the 20th-ranked overall defense enough to win multiple playoff series? Does a hot stretch in March mean the defense is fixed? Maybe not and maybe not. But fans would rather this team at least be competitive on the defensive side, especially as the season approaches its final sprint. It's been good enough recently to have folks around the NBA world asking whether the Lakers, essentially, have the juice.
Lakers' hot stretch has rocketed them to No. 3 in the West
"Would you have the Lakers as the fourth-best team in the West right now?" Asked diehard Boston sports fan Bill Simmons on The Bill Simmons Podcast recently. "I'm very tempted," was the response from The Ringer NBA writer Rob Mahoney, and, I'll go a step further than these two — I'm tempted to say the Lakers are the third-best team in basketball.
The Thunder and Spurs are the clear best teams in the conference. After that, the assumption is that the Nuggets occupy the top of the next tier. But the Lakers have been better than the Nuggets for at least a few weeks, and after an outrageous win against them this weekend, the idea of the Lakers being a better team than the Nuggets doesn't sound like a joke anymore.
I'm sure the "just wait until the playoffs" crowd will say something along the lines of "just wait until the playoffs," but late-season momentum isn't something to brush off. There's a real advantage to getting hot at the right time, and the Lakers are doing that. Sure, a healthy Nuggets team is still dangerous, but a "healthy Nuggets team" has been a hypothetical all year. The Lakers, meanwhile, are playing good basketball in real life.