LOS ANGELES — From the outside, it felt like the Lakers were in as good a place as they’d been in several months after Saturday afternoon’s home win over the Cleveland Cavaliers.
The victory was their 21st in their previous 29 games. They moved into eighth place in the Western Conference for the first time since late December, with a strong possibility of moving up the standings. At the minimum, they were in full control and could avoid falling to the 10th seed.
How quickly a few days – and a couple of tough home losses – change circumstances.
The Lakers quickly dropped back to the ninth seed with Sunday night’s 127-117 loss to the Minnesota Timberwolves.
And while they stayed at No. 9 after Tuesday night’s 134-120 loss to the Golden State Warriors, the Warriors clinched the head-to-head tiebreaker in the standings, moved just one-half game behind the Lakers with the victory and tied them in the loss column.
This means the Lakers will need outside help to ensure they don’t fall further down the standings even if they win their final two games on the road against the Memphis Grizzlies on Friday and the New Orleans Pelicans on Sunday.
“If we are as competitive as I think we are and then we really look within … yeah, it’s a difficult situation, but it’s not impossible,” Coach Darvin Ham said. “Again, we just need to do what we’ve always done. Every team is not gonna be like Golden State offensively. But just look within ourselves and see how [badly] we want it. Just come ready to work, that’s it.
“It’s not a mystery or secret formula. If you’re a competitor, and you have to be if you make it to this level – whether you’re a player, coach, executive, owner, whoever, you’re a true competitor – then you’ll make the best of a tough situation. So I expect us to do that.”
The Lakers have shown resiliency in these situations throughout the season.
They’ve lost consecutive games just twice over the last two months and three times since Jan. 15. They haven’t had a three-game losing streak since early January.
“This team has a great amount of confidence,” veteran guard Spencer Dinwiddie said. “We just have to have attention to details in the gameplan, get enough stops, which obviously, we didn’t do [Tuesday]. But we feel capable of doing [that] on most nights. And just go from there.”
LAKERS AT GRIZZLIES
When: Friday, 5 p.m. PT
Where: FedExForum, Memphis, Tenn.
TV/radio: Spectrum Sports Net/710 AM
