SAN FRANCISCO — Throughout the last two seasons, JJ Redick has referenced a popular Jay-Z bar to illustrate the ups and downs of an NBA season.
“It was all good just a week ago,” Redick has said a couple of times during his two seasons as Lakers coach, referencing Jay-Z’s “A Week Ago” from his six-time platinum-selling album, “Vol. 2… Hard Knock Life.”
Even though Redick hasn’t made the reference since April started, the sentiment applies now.
A week ago, the Lakers were one of the league’s hottest teams entering a marquee road game against the Thunder.
They had won 16 of their previous 18 games, clinching back-to-back 50-win seasons and a playoff berth March 31, and were in firm control of their postseason seeding fate.
Funny what seven days can change.
From there was the blowout loss to the Thunder at Paycom Center, with Luka Doncic (Grade 2 left hamstring strain) and Austin Reaves (Grade 2 left oblique strain) suffering regular-season-ending injuries.
And then two more losses to the Mavericks and the Thunder, all while the teams closest to them in the standings soared, with the Nuggets on a 10-game winning streak and the Rockets winning seven straight entering Thursday.
All of a sudden, the Lakers went from third place in the Western Conference standings, with a multiple-game cushion on the teams below them, to uncertainty about whether they’d host their first-round playoff series.
When the Lakers found out about Doncic’s status for the remainder of the season April 3, Redick reassured that the team’s mission was to clinch the No. 3 seed and win a first-round playoff series.
But when Reaves’ diagnosis was revealed and the losses piled up, the goal understandably changed and became more granular.
“We’ve got to prepare our team, our group that we’re going to have available to play in the playoffs series,” Redick said. “Finding who’s gonna be able to play in the playoffs for us. The seeding part probably went out the window after the OKC game.”
If the Nuggets, who entered Thursday at No. 3 in the West, win their final two regular-season games against the Thunder and Spurs, they’ll clinch third regardless of how the Lakers finish.
The Lakers would need the Nuggets, who won the regular-season series to secure the tiebreaker for postseason seeding, to drop at least one of their last two games to have a shot at reclaiming third place. And more realistically, the Nuggets would need to lose both of their final games for the Lakers to enter the playoffs as the third seed.
It’s why the Lakers are likely headed toward a No. 4 vs. No. 5 first-round playoff series against the Rockets.
It’s all just a matter of who’ll finish fourth and have homecourt advantage for the series.
Neither the Lakers nor Rockets can fall below fifth, with the Timberwolves, whom the Rockets will host Friday, already locked in at No. 6.
The Lakers have the tiebreaker over the Rockets, so if they finish with the same record, the Lakers would be the higher seed and host their first-round series.
The Nuggets also hold the tiebreaker over the Rockets.
The Lakers playing the Rockets or Timberwolves in the first round has been the likeliest outcome for weeks.
And with the Rockets being the likelier matchup, we’re on a collision course for the fourth playoff series between teams led by LeBron James and Kevin Durant, who last played each other in the playoffs during the 2018 NBA Finals when Durant’s Warriors swept James’ Cavaliers.
But last week, with the Lakers falling and the Rockets soaring, changed the complexion of the expected series.
[Notigroup Newsroom in collaboration with other media outlets, with information from the following sources]
