The Los Angeles Lakers extended their winning streak to six games on Sunday night with a 108-102 victory over the Los Angeles Clippers.
It was the Lakers’ second win against their in-city rivals in three nights despite being without Austin Reaves, Rui Hachimura and Jordan Goodwin for the matchup.
With their latest win, the Lakers jumped the Denver Nuggets for the No. 2 spot in the Western Conference by a few decimal points.
While that is an impressive feat, head coach JJ Redick won’t get too excited until the team clinches a playoff berth without needing to participate in the Play-In Tournament.
“I want to make the playoffs; I don’t want to be in the Play-In [Tournament]. Until that is secured, the seeding thought won’t cross my mind,” Redick said.
Since the Play-In Tournament was modified in 2021, the Lakers have been among the teams to participate on all but one occasion. The only exception was the 2021-22 NBA season, when L.A. finished 11th in the Western Conference.
The Lakers can avoid needing to go through the Play-In Tournament this season by clinching one of the top six seeds in the Western Conference.
With 23 games remaining on their regular-season schedule, the team is in a good position to do so. They currently hold a 6.5-game lead over the Clippers, who are penciled in for the No. 6 spot.
However, the four teams projected to participate in the Play-In Tournament are within a half game of the Clippers, so the playoff picture is still far from certain.
The Lakers will need to continue playing good basketball throughout the months of March and April to ensure they can clinch a playoff spot outright and not have to participate in the Play-In Tournament.
Lakers’ JJ Redick calls USC’s JuJu Watkins ‘one of one’
JJ Redick spent the Lakers’ off day watching USC women’s basketball star JuJu Watkins play for the first time in person and gave her high praise after her performance.
“It was awesome. It’s such a cool experience to go to a high-level college basketball game,” Redick said. “I had actually never been in Pauley Pavilion before and had wanted to go to a game all season. Just the schedule hadn’t allowed it. We were in a hotel right near there for six weeks and drove by on a number of game days when I was coming here or coming back from here. There was one game recently that was like an off day and people were turning in to go to the game and I was like crap, I wish I would’ve looked at the schedule, I actually would’ve gone today.
“My youngest son has a classmate whose dad works for UCLA, so I saw him at school this past week and was like ‘I really wanna go to the game on Saturday. So he hooked us up, and just really impressed with both teams. JuJu Watkins is one of one. She’s incredible. First time seeing her play in person but obviously I’ve watched her before. She lived up to the hype.”
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