On March 17, Beijing time, the NBA regular season continued, and the Lakers lost 104-124 to the Timberwolves, suffering three consecutive losses. After this campaign, the Lakers' record is 29 wins and 40 losses, which is 12.5 wins away from the Nuggets, the 6th in the West, and with only 13 regular season games left, the Lakers want to reach the top 6 in the West and directly advance to the playoffs. What is more worrying is whether the Lakers can play the playoffs, and it is difficult to say now.
The Lakers are currently only one win ahead of the 10th Pelicans in the West, while the 11th Spurs in the West and the 12th Blazers in the West are also only 2.5 wins away from the Lakers. At the same time, it should be noted that the Difficulty of the Lakers' schedule in the closing stage is much higher than that of the Spurs and Pelicans.
In the last 13 regular season games, the Lakers had only 4 home games, but had 9 away games. More importantly, in these 13 games, in addition to the games against the Wizards and Thunder, the remaining 11 games, the Lakers face all teams within the threshold of the playoffs. With the current state of the Lakers, they are naturally more fierce than ji.
The Spurs still have 11 games, 7 of which are against teams within the play-off threshold, 3 are card battles with the Blazers, and 1 is playing rockets, although the difficulty is not low, but it is still slightly better than the Lakers. In contrast, the Blazers, there are still 14 games left, including a wave of 5 consecutive masters, in these 14 games, the opponent is only 5 games within the play-off threshold, even if these 5 games, the Blazers can not win a game, but if they can win most of the remaining 9 games, especially to win the 3 card games with the Spurs, then they may have a chance to surpass the Lakers.
Of course, the Blazers have entered the reconstruction phase after sending McCollum, which is good news for the Lakers, but it is safer to rely on themselves than to expect others to pull their crotches. If the Lakers want to keep their playoff spots safer, they have to do two things.
One is the Lakers' mental state, which must be adjusted. In the last three games, the Lakers have been at least 25 points behind their opponents, which is the first time that this has happened in James' team career. Vogel has repeatedly stressed the need to make a good start, but the Lakers have collapsed at the beginning of 3 games, and many players have seen the collapse of emotions.
Therefore, the Lakers must find a way to cheer up the morale of the army, but it is certainly useless to shout slogans after each loss. The only way, I am afraid, is to let the thick eyebrow brother come back as soon as possible, relying on his return to save the morale of the team.
Second, the Lakers must also adjust at the tactical level, especially trying to let James and Westbrook lead the team separately, which can no longer be delayed. In this game, Westbrook was in an empty position and did not dare to shoot, and forced a pass to James's broken shot, which has already shown that the two are not compatible at all. At the end of the third quarter, after James took a break, Westbrook led the team to fill in the pit to narrow the point difference, which is enough to show that although his competitive state is not as good as before, if he lets him take the second team alone and give the football right, then he can still rush and play some value.
So it's time for the Lakers to let Westbrook play on the bench, and stop thinking that he was once the MVP, he has a super high annual salary of more than $40 million, so it is impossible to play on the bench. If you still want to take care of Westbrook's face, force him to start with James and be on the floor for a long time, it will not only pit the team's record, but also make Westbrook constantly sprayed and scolded after the game.
If these two points can be achieved, although the Lakers have little hope of competing for the championship, it is likely to be able to retain the playoff seat, and even rush to the playoffs. But if the Lakers still just shout slogans and have no substantive action, then falling out of the playoffs is not an impossible thing to happen. And the inability to compete for the championship and not even to play in the playoffs are two completely different concepts, when the entire Lakers management and coaching staff will inevitably be strongly repulsed, and then regret it, but it is really too late.