Lakers Rolling, But Well Aware That Schedule About To Toughen Up

The Lakers are continuing to stay hot, with the majority of their games lately at home. Interestingly, their most recent loss came in Los Angeles to the lowly Hornets.

So the Luka Doncic trade has served them well — despite the fact there isn’t a whole lot around Doncic and LeBron James. But winning is winning, and right now, the Lakers are doing plenty of it.

They currently sit at No. 4 in the latest ESPN power rankings. Things are about to get tougher, though.

“The Lakers have won nine straight games against teams with a .500 record or better. But the schedule remains unrelenting,” wrote ESPN’s Dave McMenamin. “After handling the Pelicans on Tuesday (highlighted by James surpassing the 50,000-point mark), four of the Lakers’ next five opponents boast winning records.”

There’s also an upcoming trip, about which James has already tweeted. That starts Saturday at Boston and also includes road games at Brooklyn, Milwaukee and Denver. They face New York on Tuesday, and the Knicks are fresh off a loss to the Warriors. So they ought to be plenty motivated.

But with the way the Lakers are playing, well, you can no longer look at them as just a team that will be decent for the regular season. With a month to go before the playoffs, they are starting to look like contenders. The upcoming schedule should tell us a lot more.

“Lakers coach JJ Redick said he is stressing to his team to look at the schedule as a positive rather than a negative, with a chance to develop a ‘hardened mentality around competition,'” McMenamin wrote.