On March 8, the Lakers lost to the Spurs on the road, losing eight of their last 10 games and currently ranking ninth in the West. The ninth place in the East belongs to the Nets, both teams have a number of superstars and legendary players, and before the start of the season, it was recognized as the most likely team in the league to reach the Finals, but what was not expected was that the regular season had entered the sprint stage, and the two teams had a bad recent situation and a very poor record, the Lakers were 28-35, and the Nets were 32-33.
With the Nets still in 17 regular-season games and the Lakers 19 with 19 regular-season games left, the gap between the two teams is relatively large between the top six in the division, and there are multiple competitors in front of them. It is easy to imagine the difficulty of wanting to achieve a wave of popular wins in the near future, while 3-4 major competitors have dropped the chain. So this season's Nets and Lakers are very likely to play in the playoffs.
Once you participate in the playoffs, the outcome of the win or loss is really difficult to predict, after all, the playoffs are a fixed win, the direct decision is to advance to the playoffs or elimination, and only after 82 rounds of regular season rankings 7th and 8th have the possibility of making mistakes, if it is the current lakers and nets ranking, division ninth, the playoffs must be won in two games.
But at the moment, the Nets and Lakers are in a bad state, if the Lakers meet the Clippers, Timberwolves and other teams, and the Nets meet Manchester United, Hornets or Cavaliers, it is still very difficult to qualify in the playoffs. Although on paper strength, the Nets and Lakers have certain advantages, but a game that is decided to win or lose is very accidental.
If the Nets and Lakers miss the playoffs, then the league will usher in a crisis, star players are absent, popular teams are eliminated, then the impact on the playoffs is great, and the league's ratings will also be greatly reduced. This can be seen from last season, the Lakers played the playoffs, and their showdown with the Warriors was the highest rating of the regular season + playoffs that season, and there was no one. The Nets were eliminated in the second round of the playoffs, the Lakers were out of the first round, and the Warriors did not enter the playoffs, making the influence and ratings of the later playoffs relatively low.
Therefore, the league definitely hopes that star players will play in the key playoffs, and at the same time hope that they can go farther and farther, which is good for ratings and the influence and promotion of the league. But at the moment the Nets and Lakers even have the possibility of falling out of the playoffs, they are highly studied by opponents, and all teams take them as opponents, which is a huge test for Vogel and Nash.