The Los Angeles Lakers are coming. They won their third straight game on Sunday night after defeating Tyrese Haliburton and the Indiana Pacers in a shootout, 150-145.
Not only have the Lakers put some separation between themselves and the Golden State Warriors for the ninth seed in the West (the Dubs are now 2.5 games behind LA) but all of a sudden, the No. 6 seed has become well within reach for LeBron James and Co.
Anthony Davis Vocal on Los Angeles Lakers’ Chase for Guaranteed Playoff Spot
At the moment, it’s the Phoenix Suns who own the sixth seed in the conference. However, only three games separate them from the Lakers, with the Sacramento Kings (seventh) and the Dallas Mavericks (eighth) also vying for positioning.
At this point, however, Lakers superstar Anthony Davis admitted that gunning for that No. 6 seed could backfire for LA if they’re not careful. Right now, AD, who had a monster 36-point, 16-rebound double-double against Indiana, is just taking it one game at a time:
“A little. I mean, it’s everywhere right now, but for us, we’re just trying to control what we can, and that’s winning one game at a time,” Davis said, via Ryan Ward of Lakers Nation. “Obviously, we try to look and figure out how far we are behind the sixth seed, but you stress yourself out. Putting too much pressure on yourself and constantly looking at it but we’re ninth right now so we just got to continue to play our style of basketball and focus on us and take it one game at a time and worry about winning that game and if we continuously do that, then the rest will take care of itself.”
LeBron James had a similar message about the tight race in the West after Sunday’s win. It is clear that he and Davis are on the same page in terms of controlling what they can control.
At the end of the day, getting stuck in the Play-In race isn’t going to be so bad for the Lakers. This is where they started last season and they still went all the way to the West Finals.
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