Hey everyone and welcome to the Times’ Lakers newsletter, a little something I’m able to write in between the continuous quarters of basketball that the Lakers have been playing since the NBA All-Star Game. It’s all, honestly, been a blur. But there’s one thing that’s become clear for this team.
Lakers coach JJ Redick sighed at my question postgame Wednesday, the words potentially poking at the mythical forces that determine whether your team is lucky or not. Luck, Redick knows, is a huge factor in who makes it to the end and lifts a championship trophy.
After his team beat the short-handed Nuggets Wednesday for their third-straight win, I asked Redick whether his goals for the postseason had shifted. For weeks, he’d been saying that the goal for the Lakers was to just make the playoffs, to avoid the play-in tournament on the way into the first round for the first time since 2020 — the play-in’s inaugural outing.
But another win at Crypto.com Arena, this one coming as the Lakers’ moved into third place in the Western Conference standings, dangled another carrot for the team — the possibility of home-court advantage in the playoffs for at least one round.
The mere mention of it, though, caused Redick to pause.
“Yeah, we would all love to have home-court advantage. It would be nice,” Redick admitted, “And our group has been awesome at home so far. They have. But again, you’ve gotta play the next game and you’ve gotta win the game in front of you. And then, I’ve just seen it too many times.
The Basketball Gods, if you start messing around with things, the Basketball Gods, they will punish you.
The way around all this, of course, is to simply keep winning without acknowledging the obvious — the Lakers have been tremendous in their own building.
Since Jan. 1, the Lakers have lost only twice at home — both coming off of extended breaks. They lost to San Antonio in the first game after the wildfire pause and they lost to Charlotte in their first game back after an abbreviated All-Star break (the first of those makeup games being played).
Otherwise, they’ve won. And won. And won and won and won. They’re 18-2 in their last 20 at home and have won nine in a row in their arena.
I mean, we just play hard and our fans have been great,” Gabe Vincent said. “Guys make shots when they’re open more so at home than they do on the road historically. So that always helps to get this extra lift.”
Vincent is making 10% more from three at home since Jan. 1. LeBron James is 12% better from three at home during that stretch, too. Regardless of the shooting splits, the most important number has been the wins.
The Lakers definitely have enough talent when healthy to win on the road. But they’ve also shown that at home, they’ve been able to navigate adversity and win without a full roster.
