Hello, Lakers Nation. Welcome in. Trevor Lane here for Lakersnation.com. You're home for everything. Lakers. There is a lot to talk about today. So we are opening up the call in line. We're going to be talking some Lakers basketball fans on today's show. Before we dive into all of that, though. And I do want to welcome everybody who is joining us over on the AMP app. YouTube viewers, of course, welcome.

Make sure you are subscribing over on the YouTube channel. And then our listeners over on the podcast side, Apple, podcast, Spotify, wherever it is you listen to the podcast, welcome to all of you. But I do want to mention, you know, we're heading into the home stretch here, seven games left for the Lakers. I spent some time today going over the schedule, the schedule for the Lakers, the schedule for all of their opponents, including, you know, the Pelicans, the Warriors, the Mavs, all these teams that are right around them, the Thunder. And looking at things, you know, I feel pretty good about where the Lakers are at. And I know a lot of people are feeling down. A lot of people are feeling upset after the Lakers lost that game against the Chicago Bulls. But, you know, I started off this show. And I'll admit, I didn't put on the correct song that I was going for. I was going for, Never Say Die, a song by the band Megadeth. I got something a little bit different. but regardless, it is Megadeth's cover of the old Black Sabbath song, Never Say Die.

I've seen a lot of Lakers fans that are upset, that are frustrated, that they lost that game to the Chicago Bulls.

And when I step back, I look and I see, you know what, the Lakers got LeBron back early, earlier than expected.

The Lakers are three and one in their last four games. And I think they've set themselves up. Well, sure, there have been some

frustrating losses. We can talk about losing to Dallas at the buzzer. We could talk about Houston.

But I think they've set themselves up to make a real push here to finish out the season and be in a good spot. Now, preferably, you'd like to see them in the seven or the eight seed. And I think they're in position to get there. You do have to win games. You have to beat the teams that are in front of you. And there's going to be some difficult ones coming up. You've got Minnesota coming up on Friday. You've got Chicago coming up tomorrow. These are not going to be easy matchups for the Lakers. These are going to be games that you have to get out and you have to win, but you also have the Utah Jazz twice. You have those rockets again. The Lakers should have some revenge on their mind there. So you've got some opportunities here to pick up wins. That's what you're going to need to do. You're going to need to capitalize and find a way to win some of these games.

I think if they go four and three over the final seven, they're in pretty good shape.

As far as at least making it into the play in, even three and four, they probably make it into the play in.

Five and two, yeah, you could be looking at moving up to six or seven. Certainly if you are six and one, I think five and two yeah you you could be looking at moving up to six or seven certainly if you are six

and one i think five and two is a realistic goal for the lakers over the final seven here assuming

there's health for everybody and then assuming everybody plays in each game there is a back-to-back

that's coming up does a d sit does lebron sit those are going to be questions for that um but i think that

five and two is a realistic goal you go seven and oh we could be talking six seed right i mean that's

something that could be in play i don't know how realistic seven and oh is but again when i see

people doom and gloom in saying you know oh this is the season's over i can't how did the Bulls? Every game's a must win. Yes, every game is a must win right now in terms of the standings, but it's not a must win in the sense that you're going to drop out of the playing picture or you've robbed yourself of an opportunity to move up. Again, you have to win games. You can't go like two and five or something. If you do, then that's it.

Right.

Essentially, what it's going to come down to is there's probably going to be four or five

teams that are competing for the last few playoff spots.

And somebody is not going to make it.

Dallas, the Pelicans, the Thunder, the Lakers.

One of those four teams is not going to get into the play-in. And the other ones are going to have to beat a good team. You're going to have to, at the very least, even if you're the seventh seat or the eight-seat, you're going to have to play the Mavs. You're going to have to play the Pelicans. Maybe they'll have Zion back. You're going to have to play the Thunder. you're going to have to play a team that's pretty good. Maybe the Warriors. Oh, my gosh, could you imagine?

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