The Los Angeles Lakers improved their chances of making the playoffs on Sunday with their third straight victory, and LeBron James insists they are still hoping to win a championship this year.
The Lakers defeated the Houston Rockets 134-109 to raise their record to 40-38 with four games remaining, moving them up to seventh place in the Western Conference behind the losers from the weekend, the Los Angeles Clippers (41-38) and Golden State Warriors (41-38).
The Los Angeles Lakers are in front of the New Orleans Pelicans (40-38), holding the head-to-head tiebreaker.
The top six teams advance automatically to the playoffs, while teams seven through ten compete in a play-in round.
Following a series of trades in February including the additions of D’Angelo Russell, Jarred Vanderbilt, Rui Hachimura and Malik Beasley with Russell Westbrook departing, the Lakers have stormed into playoff contention, winning 10 of their past 14 games.
“We just want to put ourselves in the position to compete for a championship,” James told reporters.
“It’s a journey and obviously we don’t have as much chemistry as a lot of other teams that have aspirations to win a championship, but we’ve been building over the last month or so.
The Los Angeles Lakers improved their chances of making the playoffs on Sunday with their third straight victory, and LeBron James insists they are still hoping to win a championship this year.
The Lakers defeated the Houston Rockets 134-109 to raise their record to 40-38 with four games remaining, moving them up to seventh place in the Western Conference behind the losers from the weekend, the Los Angeles Clippers (41-38) and Golden State Warriors (41-38).
The Los Angeles Lakers are in front of the New Orleans Pelicans (40-38), holding the head-to-head tiebreaker. The top six teams advance automatically to the playoffs, while teams seven through ten compete in a play-in round.
“These last four games are very important for our team, not only wins and losses but also the chemistry side as well.
“We need to continue to build what we’ve been building over the last month or so. We’ll see what happens.”
James had 18 points, 10 rebounds and 11 assists to match Jason Kidd for 107 career triple-doubles, which is fourth overall in NBA history.
Anthony Davis played a key role with 40 points, including 27 in the first half, with James saying his All-Star team-mate was “making magic right now”.
Russell only played 15 minutes for six points, not returning after half-time due to left foot soreness but Lakers head coach Darvin Ham downplayed any major issue.
“It was definitely precautionary,” Ham said. “He could have continued the game if we needed him to. The bodies we have available to us now, we just didn’t want to risk it.”