[Insider] Assing the Leakers' Playoff Hopes

There's some stuff about us in here too. Basically says that it's going to come down to LA and Utah for that last spot. We seem safe. But... we all know how well that went last year...

Article:

Here come the Los Angeles Lakers. Despite a schedule loss Monday, when the NBA shipped them to Denver to play a challenging opponent at altitude in the second game of a back-to-back, the Lakers have won 11 of their past 16 games. With wins at home over Minnesota and Atlanta in their next two games, the Lakers can get to .500 for the first time since New Year's Day. Now, Kobe Bryant can talk about a playoff run with his usual confidence.

"It's not a question of if we make the playoffs. We will," Bryant told Sports Illustrated last week. "And when we get there, I have no fear of anyone -- Oklahoma City, San Antonio, Denver ... whoever. I have zero nervousness about that."

Bryant probably should. The Lakers are three games behind the Houston Rockets for the eighth and final playoff spot in the Western Conference with 24 games to play. The Hollinger Playoff Odds show them making up the difference 33.5 percent of the time. My simulations are slightly more optimistic because they still incorporate preseason lines to improve accuracy. (They now make up 30 percent of the projection for the rest of the season, as derived by Insider's Neil Paine.) In this case, optimistic means the Lakers still reach the playoffs less than half the time -- 44.8 percent of simulations.

What the Lakers have to do

The typical simulation shows the eighth playoff team in the Western Conference finishing with either 43 or 44 wins. Because the Lakers are in the eighth spot some of the time, we can favor the lower number and assume the Lakers have to get to 43-39 to have a 50-50 shot at a playoff berth. In fact, their average projection is 42.3 wins.

Getting to 43 wins means a 15-9 record the remainder of the way. That's doable, given the Lakers' schedule. As balanced as it looks -- precisely half of their remaining games are home and away, and half are against opponents that would make the playoffs if the season ended today -- the combination of those two criteria favors the Lakers. They have only six remaining road games against playoff teams, mostly against lesser lights such as Atlanta and Milwaukee. The hardest remaining games, including an April 7 "road" matchup with the Clippers, will be played at the Staples Center.

Still, we shouldn't understate the difficulty of the Lakers going 15-9 the rest of the way. Despite the recent run, they haven't been able to sustain such success over an extended period at any point this season. There isn't a single 24-game period all year where the Lakers have won more than 13 games. With so little margin for error, they certainly can't afford Dwight Howard missing time or any other serious injury.

What other teams have to do

The Lakers can do their part and still be eliminated because the three teams ahead of them -- the Rockets, the Golden State Warriors and the Utah Jazz -- need only go .500 to get to at least 43 wins. In fact, the simulation shows the Lakers aren't really guaranteed a playoff spot unless they get to 47 wins. So there will be plenty of scoreboard watching for the Lakers, whose playoff hopes might go down after a win if their competitors are also victorious.

Unfortunately for the Lakers, the team they're closest to catching (Houston) also happens to be the best of the three this season. The Rockets have outscored opponents by 2.9 points per game, a differential far better than not only the Lakers (+0.9) but also the Warriors (-0.1) and Jazz (-0.4), both of whom have been outscored despite records solidly better than .500. Houston has been even better of late and has reached fourth in the Hollinger Power Rankings, so the Rockets probably won't be caught by the Lakers.

Of the last three teams in the West playoff spots, the simulation shows Utah as most vulnerable. Most likely, the Jazz will win about half of their remaining 25 games. They go 13-12 or 12-13 in about a third of the simulations. That would put Utah's final record at 43 or 44 wins -- right at the upper threshold of what the Lakers are likely to accomplish. There is, however, the outside chance of a Jazz collapse down the stretch. Utah finishes .500 or worse some 20 percent of the time, which would open the door to a Lakers comeback.

The bad news for the Lakers is that they already have lost the tiebreaker to the Jazz, who won the series 2-1. The Lakers still have games home and away left with Golden State with a chance to sweep the series and finish the regular season against Houston in a game that will decide the tiebreaker between the teams (the Rockets lead the series 2-1). Those head-to-head matchups could loom large.

If the Lakers do make the playoffs

Even if Bryant might not fear the teams the Lakers could face in the opening round -- usually likely top seed San Antonio in the simulation, but occasionally Oklahoma City with a slim chance of an all-Staples matchup with the Clippers -- there's little to suggest those teams should fear the Lakers either. Combined, the West's top three teams are 7-1 against the Lakers, who can point only to their home win over the Thunder on Jan. 27.

Beyond that, as Tom Ziller noted Monday on SBNation.com, the Lakers simply haven't coalesced the way their recent win-loss record would suggest. The surge is more about schedule and the team's poor fortune in close games turning than improved play. So while the Lakers' point differential is better than their record would indicate, it's also nowhere near the West's top teams.

Though the Lakers need to make the playoffs to avoid their season being perceived -- fairly or not -- as one of the most disappointing in NBA history, their stay is unlikely to last long if they do sneak in. Barring a historic upset, we're really talking about whether the Lakers' season ends in mid-April or the end of the month. Sorry, Kobe.

Source: http://insider.espn.go.com/nba/stor...ba-assessing-los-angeles-lakers-playoff-hopes

 

Oops. Title mistake. Assessing* that was unintentional. Leakers, on the other hand, was most definitely intentional