Time is ticking down on the regular season, and the Los Angeles Lakers are holding steady in the standings with three wins in their last four games. Currently sitting in the ninth spot in the Western Conference, LA will need to make a serious push to get themselves out of the play-in range before mid-April.
With 19 games remaining on the schedule, there will be no room for error for the Lakers. There is a good chance they end up in the postseason in some capacity, but making it to the playoffs is far from a guarantee.
Looking ahead to various scenarios the Lakers could be faced with in the postseason, some outcomes are more favorable than others. These are three situations that LA will need to do everything they can to avoid.
Facing Denver in the first round
Last season, the Lakers wound up with the seven seed and were able to upset the second-seeded Grizzlies thanks to a favorable matchup. With Brandon Clarke and Steven Adams both out due to injury, LA's big men went to work on the interior, and that ended up being the difference in the series.
But as we saw, Anthony Davis and company ran into a nightmare matchup when they were torched by the likes of Nikola Jokic and the Denver Nuggets in the Western Conference Finals last year. The defending champions are a potential first round opponent for the Lakers this year, and LA will want to avoid that matchup at all costs.
Denver is one of the few teams that can match the Lakers' size and physicality on the interior, and they would almost certainly bounce the Lake Show in round one. The Nuggets currently hold the third spot in the West. If they remain there at the end of the regular season, LA should be trying to get any seed but the sixth.