After a blowout loss to the Suns, the Lakers are looking at an uphill battle to defend their NBA Cup.
While it took the Lakers almost 10 games to finally do it, the first loss they suffered in the NBA Cup on Tuesday could hardly have gone worse. The Suns exploded — pun intended? — in the third quarter to win in a rout against the Lakers.
A blowout loss doesn’t just hurt the morale, it also greatly hurt their chances of defending the prestigious NBA Cup. With the loss, the Lakers fall into a tie with the Spurs and Suns at 2-1 records.
On top of all that, the Lakers wrap up group play on Friday against an OKC side that is the best in the Western Conference. They, too, are on the outside looking in, sitting at 1-1 in group play and needing wins in each of the final two games to advance to the quarterfinals.
In essence, it’s a must-win for both teams. The Lakers will be at home, a place they have been far better this season. But it’ll be a daunting task to come away with the win, which would assuredly be their best of the season.
Even if everything breaks their way, though, the Lakers’ fate is out of their control. The Spurs and Suns play in their final group game, so the three-way tie will become just a two-way tie.
The simplest way this plays out is that the Lakers win, the Spurs win and the Lakers have the head-to-head against San Antonio, advancing them out of the group. But if the Lakers win and the Suns win, the Lakers lose that head-to-head battle.
That, then, leaves them in contention for the one wild card spot. And thus, the problem of being blown out arises. Point differential comes into play at that point, and the Lakers’ is now pretty bad. Their only real hope in that department is winning against the Thunder by a LOT. And that’s very unrealistic.
In Group A, Houston is blowing everyone out and are the only team with a positive point differential. The Clippers in second are close at -5, but also have two more games to play. Portland is also 1-1, but has a -14 point differential but also the two teams play one another still, so one team will be eliminated from contention.
In Group C, the Mavericks beating the Pelicans by 41 points means, despite a loss, if they beat Memphis on Tuesday, they pretty much have the wild card locked up at worst. Golden State is unbeaten, but has to travel to Denver.
Basically, there just isn’t a realistic scenario where the Lakers can go 3-1 with a negative point differential and make it out of the group as a wild card. They would effectively need the Clippers and Blazers to both lose to take them out of contention while also having Denver beat Golden State by about 20 points, on top of beating the Thunder by about 10 points.
Got it? Good. Believe it? You shouldn’t.
The simplest and most realistic way, to wrap all this up, is for the Lakers to beat OKC on Friday and then sit back and root for the Spurs to win on the road against Phoenix.
Outside of that, it’s a very, very slim chance the Lakers will get the opportunity to go back-to-back in the NBA Cup.
You can follow Jacob on Twitter at @JacobRude.
