The Lakers have been an enigma throughout this season. They have been great in close games, but also prone to being blown out with some regularity. In essence, they’re a team that hasn’t always seemed as good as their record would indicate.
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Understandably, just about anyone with a platform has made it clear that the Lakers aren’t a true contender. Sure, they have the league’s leading scorer in Luka Doncic, and arguably its greatest player of all time in LeBron James. But that’s been deemed a bad thing due to the way those two stars fit, or rather, do not fit together on the court.
For a team as heavily scrutinized as the Lakers, it’s been pretty remarkable how they’ve risen above the noise. They’ve won eight of their past nine games. And while their one loss in that stretch was to their longtime tormentors, the Denver Nuggets, they avenged it in epic fashion on Saturday with a thrilling 127-125 overtime win.
That game had it all… A perfectly executed missed free throw and putback by Austin Reaves in the final seconds, a 41-year-old LeBron diving for a critical loose ball, and a 30-point triple-double from Luka that he punctuated with the game-winner.
The Lakers are now in third place in the Western Conference. But still, not everyone is convinced that they have what it takes to make a postseason run. Unsurprisingly, longtime Celtic Paul Pierce is one of those skeptics.
On the most recent No Fouls Given, Pierce said, “I’m not sure they get out the first round. They have to play Timberwolves, Nuggets, or Rockets.”
Pierce’s cohost, Danny Green, said that he thought the Lakers could beat the Wolves or the Rockets. But Pierce dismissed the idea by saying, “No way. I don’t think the Lakers come out [of] the first round no matter who they play.”
Pierce went so far as to say that, out of all teams in the playoff/play-in race in the West, the Lakers can only beat the Warriors and the Trail Blazers.
Every year is different, for sure. But in Pierce’s defense, the Wolves did wipe the Lakers out in five games in last year’s first round, kicking off their run to a second straight conference finals.
Of course, this is one of those arguments that will need to be settled on the court. Will the Lakers be able to overcome their mediocre metrics and their lousy defense? Will the Luka-LeBron-Reaves trio be able to carry the day against more physical teams?
Their recent run of victories has given the Lakers fans hope that a deep run is possible. But the West is looking like a true gauntlet this year. Getting to the Finals would probably take beating one of the Wolves/Rockets/Nuggets trio, then overcoming the Spurs and the Thunder, both of whom have looked phenomenal.
We’ll see if Pierce is willing to put his money where his mouth is when the postseason comes. He’s done it before, and it hasn’t turned out so well for him, but maybe this time will be different.
