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In the blink of an eye, the Lakers have gone from one of the hottest teams in basketball to one that’s desperately trying to find a path towards success.
That’s what happens when your two best players get injured in the same game and are out for the rest of the regular season. With no Luka Dončić or Austin Reaves, the Lakers have lost three straight games. They have gone from sole possession of the three seed in the West to tied for fourth in the conference with the Rockets after a blowout loss at home to the No. 1 seed Thunder.
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Before their game against OKC, Lakers head coach JJ Redick addressed the realities his team suddenly finds itself in.
“You obviously have to tackle the situation in front of you,” Redick said. “We have a unique situation in front of us and we’ve got to prepare our team, our group that we’re going to have available to play in the playoff series. So that’s how we approach the next four games, how we approach next week, leading into game one. It’s finding who’s going to be able to play in the playoffs for us. So, that all goes into it. The seeding part probably went out the window after the OKC game.”
It’s jarring to see the Lakers going from a team that could potentially win the West to one that can’t win a game.
Besides having Dončić and Reaves out, the Lakers also played the Thunder without LeBron James and Marcus Smart. So, they had to compete against the best team in the league late in the season with two-way big Drew Timme starting and rookie Adou Thiero logging more minutes than he has all season.
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Instead of peaking at the right time, the Lakers have had a series of unfortunate events and are now crumbling at the worst moment.
They have three regular-season games left to find something, anything that can help them extend their season beyond the four playoff games they are set to play.
So far, all Lakers fans have is delusional optimism that some medical treatment for Luka in Spain can expedite his return and bring him back just as good as he was before. Because the team, as currently constructed, has no shot at beating any of the…
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/lakers-preparing-team-playoffs-amidst-191200458.html
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Publish date : 2026-04-08 19:12:00
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