NEW ORLEANS — The Los Angeles Lakers’ playoff path quickly became the topic of discussion in their locker room after their 124-108 regular-season finale win over the New Orleans Pelicans.
The conversation naturally trended toward Denver, with the realization that if the Lakers win Tuesday’s rematch with the Pelicans in the No. 7 versus No. 8 game Tuesday, they’ll be the No. 7 seed and play the defending champion No. 2 Denver Nuggets in the first round.
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No West team wants to play the Nuggets, who remain the favorite to come out of the Western Conference. Denver went 12-3 against the West in the playoffs last season, including sweeping the Lakers in the Western Conference finals. The Nuggets have also won eight consecutive games against the Lakers across the 2022-23 and 2023-24 seasons, dominating them in crunch time. They have the consensus best player in the world in Nikola Jokić, arguably the best lineup in the league and an unsolvable two-man game between Jokić and Jamal Murray.
At the same time, no team wants to play a single-elimination game, even at home, when an injury, foul trouble or hot shooting night from an opponent could spell the end of your season. The Lakers are a combined 1-7 against the No. 9 Sacramento Kings and No. 10 Golden State Warriors this season — though LeBron James and Anthony Davis each missed at least one of the three losses against the Warriors. The Kings are now without injured guards Malik Monk and Kevin Huerter, which makes them more beatable. But they still have De’Aaron Fox and Domantas Sabonis, who have both given the Lakers fits for years. The Warriors have Stephen Curry, still one of the best offensive forces in the world, and a championship core that has rounded into form over the second half of the season.
There is no easy path for the Lakers to repeat last season’s postseason success or advance even further. Not in this deep of a Western Conference. Not when a disastrous 3-10 stretch from December through January ultimately made them a Play-In team. Not when it took more than 50 games for them to find the proper starting lineup. Not when they’ve had this many injuries to key members of their supporting cast. The road forward will be challenging without home-court advantage from the No. 7 or No. 8 spot, assuming, of course, the Lakers even make the playoffs.
But this is exactly why earning a spot in the No. 7 versus No. 8 game with Sunday’s result presents a win-win scenario for the purple and gold. The Lakers don’t have to pick the postseason scenario they prefer. Both outcomes have upsides and downsides. All the Lakers can control is showing up against the Pelicans on Tuesday, playing their best game possible and letting the proverbial chips fall where they may.
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The upside of beating New Orleans is obvious. If the Lakers win, they’re in the playoffs. Once in the postseason, anything can happen.
Los Angeles has been preparing for the Denver rematch for nearly a year. While the results in the regular season were the same, with Denver going 3-0 head-to-head, the Lakers at least looked more comfortable offensively against the Nuggets in the games in February and March. That doesn’t matter much if wins don’t materialize in a series, but it’s a sign the Lakers could push the Nuggets more than they have the past two seasons.
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“Obviously we won’t see them again this (regular) season, but it’s a good game to learn from,” head coach Darvin Ham said after the Lakers’ 124-114 loss to the Nuggets on March 2. “At some point, we’ll overcome what we’re going through with this team.”
Perhaps the Lakers’ improved offense and 3-point shooting put them over the top. Their new starting lineup, which has faced Denver’s starters just once this season, could make a difference. Maybe the Nuggets suffer an injury or a shooting slump of their own. However improbable any of those outcomes are, making the playoffs, at a minimum, is better than the potential alternative of losing to the Pelicans and then losing to the Kings or Warriors to end the season before the playoffs even begin.
Another benefit to playing the Nuggets earlier in the postseason is catching them while James and Davis are freshest. James was hindered by his left foot injury last season, which has lingered into this season. But James said Sunday that he’s doing “better than I did at the end of the season last year going into the postseason,” which is a significant development. James averaged 27.8 points, 9.5 rebounds and 10.0 assists against the Nuggets in the West finals, but only shot 26.9 percent on 3s and lacked his trademark burst and athleticism.
Both internally and externally, the Lakers acknowledge Denver is not a good matchup for them.
“They have our number,” James said after the loss on March 2.
“I don’t think any team in the league really wants to see us, besides a couple,” Taurean Prince said on March 27 in Memphis, alluding to the Nuggets and Kings.
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But the notion of the Lakers throwing Tuesday’s game in New Orleans to duck the Nuggets is absurd. That goes against the spirit of competitive sports. For the Lakers to make it out of the West, they’d almost certainly have to play the Nuggets at some point, be it in the first round or conference finals if they were on opposite ends of the bracket. Los Angeles doesn’t want to disrespect the Basketball Gods and then play a single-elimination game, especially not when Davis has exited three games early in the past month.
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Forget tanking: the Lakers could just lose to the Pelicans in a fair fight on Tuesday. They beat the Pelicans three out of four times this season, but New Orleans has already blown the Lakers out this season in New Orleans — though it was on the second night of a back-to-back. The Lakers only have to look back to last season’s playoffs, when they beat both Memphis and Golden State on the road in Game 1, but then lost both Game 2s by double-digits.
“Tuesday’s game is going to be extremely hard, extremely difficult, extremely physical,” James said. “I’ve always known that, when you play a playoff series – and I look at this like a two-game playoff series – if you win that first game, a team has multiple days to kind of sit on that feeling, or sit with that taste in their mouth of defeat. So they’re going to be extremely ready for us and we have to come in with the same sense of urgency that we had the previous game.”
Additionally, though Davis said “no doubt that I’m gonna play,” he’s listed as questionable with back spasms. If he suffers a pregame setback and cannot play Tuesday, the Lakers would be heavy underdogs.
“I mean see how it feels for the rest of the day,” Davis said Sunday. “Getting massages and some treatment. … Just keep it loose. I just see how I feel over the next 24, 36 hours.”
If the Lakers lose to New Orleans on Tuesday, there is still a silver lining. The Lakers will essentially be in a Game 7 at home, where they’re 28-14, the fourth-best home record in the West. If the Lakers can survive that game against Sacramento or Golden State, which they’d likely be favored in, they’d have a solid chance to upset the No. 1 Oklahoma City Thunder in the first round. The Lakers won the season series 3-1 and have a clear advantage on the interior with their size, strength and physicality.
The Lakers would have much closer to 50/50 odds, if not slight favorites, to beat the top-seeded Thunder. That is a considerable difference compared to their chances against the Nuggets, who’d be the significant favorites entering the series. The Lakers’ chances of making the Western Conference finals are certainly higher from No. 8 than No. 7. But to go beyond that, they’d likely have to beat the Nuggets.
Whether they win or lose on Tuesday, the Lakers will still have a shot at making and advancing in the postseason, which is all they can realistically ask for after their 24-25 start. If they get there, it appears how far they ultimately go will be determined by whether they can finally conquer their Rocky Mountain demons — sooner or later.
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(Top photo: Ezra Shaw / Getty Images)
