embarrassing loss to the Celtics<\/a>, they took it a step further. They lost to an Orlando Magic team without arguably it\u2019s best player in Franz Wagner and their top perimeter defender in Jalen Suggs. Yes, the same Magic team that \u2014 with all due respect \u2014 doesn\u2019t even rank top five in the mediocre Eastern Conference.<\/p>\nGiven how competitive and tight the Western Conference standings are right now, especially in the middle of the pack, that was a horrible loss for the Lakers.<\/p>\n
Now they\u2019re sitting in sixth place and just three games above the play-in category, specifically where their next opponent, the Suns, are currently slotted.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s why Thursday\u2019s match becomes significantly more important for the Lakers.<\/p>\n
Not only do they need to tie the season series against their fellow Pacific Division opponent, but they also need to create some distance from them to stay afloat in the standings. It will help that the Suns\u2019 best players, namely Devin Booker and Dillon Brooks \u2014 who, yes, have given the Lakers some trouble and a lot of annoyance this season, are ruled out for this one.<\/p>\n
The Suns will most likely run their offense through Jalen Green, Collin Gillespie, Grayson Allen and Mark Williams. As long as the Lakers don\u2019t allow them to play extraordinarily well, then LA should be able to handle them.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s really no excuse for the Lakers to lose. They\u2019re not playing their best basketball right now, but they have to at least attempt to be better. The good news is that they play well on the road, so hopefully we see a better performance from them in the next two games.<\/p>\n
Without Booker and Brooks at the perimeter, the Lakers should be able to feast.<\/p>\n
It would be ideal to see a bounce back game from top to bottom. Can we get another good game from Deandre Ayton against his former team? Can Austin Reaves be more impactful? And most importantly, can the team as a whole just show more pride and play with more determination to win games?<\/p>\n
With 25 games left, the worst-case scenario for them is to fall into the play-in range after playing well enough for most of the season to be out of it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Lakers (34-23) are back on the road for the next two games, starting on Thursday when they…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":625293,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3791],"tags":[7,64012,6,2065,472,4045,604],"class_list":{"0":"post-625292","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-phoenix-suns","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-los-angeles-lakers-discussion","10":"tag-nba","11":"tag-phoenix","12":"tag-phoenix-suns","13":"tag-phoenixsuns","14":"tag-suns"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116134940686778608","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/625292","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=625292"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/625292\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/625293"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=625292"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=625292"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=625292"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}