Hello, everybody and welcome to another edition of the Knicks Film School pregame show.

My name is Andrew Claudio, aka GMAC.

It is time for the first preview of some West Coast games here on the next

film school pregame show.

We start in Hollywood against the team that Hollywood cares about.

The Los Angeles Lakers on Thursday night national TV game on TNT.

I apologize in advance.

The New York Knicks will take on a Los Angeles Lakers for the second time this season.

The last time they took on the Los Angeles Lakers and we did a pregame pod.

The tone was about how this could potentially be LeBron's last season, what to make of the fact that they were six and one without Anthony Davis starting

that stretch and what to expect on that Saturday night matchup with this trip to Madison

Square Garden and the job that the Lakers had done under head coach JJ Radick and this nice story

of a competent Laker team probably around a six or a five

seed. And then hours after that pod and that game, the whole NBA world was shook up.

The Los Angeles Lakers made arguably the biggest trade, a shocking trade in NBA history

and acquiring Luca Dantzich.

And just to go through what's happened since then, they're 7 and 2 with Luca. Their stretch of success actually goes back a little further than the Luca Dantage trade.

Since January 14th, this team is 19 and 4.

They have climbed to the second best record in the Western Conference. This is a team

that is now officially, we can call them title contenders. And since that January 14th date,

which does include some pre-Luca games, but also includes very little Anthony Davis. This team is

first in defensive rating, first in three point, first in field goal

...