On April 7, Beijing time, the NBA regular season continued, and the Lakers played the Cavaliers at home. In this game, Russell came up with an excellent hand and helped the team take the initiative on the court, but the Cavaliers fell into a counterattack in the second half and once overtook the score, but then the Lakers went on a 19-0 offensive wave to directly open the difference, and then did not give the Cavaliers another chance. In the end, the Lakers defeated the Cavaliers 116-97 and won four in a row.
The Lakers' recent performance has been very hot, and this time they have continued the momentum, coming up with full firepower, suppressing the Cavaliers, although they were in a short slump after that, they quickly adjusted, and then they have been dominating the initiative on the court, and have not given the opponent any chance to fight back. With this big win over the Cavaliers, the Lakers have won nine of their last 10 games, and when their opponents made a series of mistakes, they managed to seize the opportunity to achieve a counterattack and successfully rush to eighth place in the West.
With this wave of four straight wins, the Lakers' record has improved to 45-33, surpassing the Kings to move up to eighth in the West, and 0.5 wins away from the Pelicans (45-32) in seventh. This is the Lakers' return to the top eight in the West after more than 4 months, but they didn't expect it to be at the end of the season, which is still very critical for them. Even if they enter the playoffs as a play-off, the eighth position is much better than the ninth, after all, there is one more chance of repechage.
The Lakers seized the opportunity during this time and successfully rushed up, which also put a lot of pressure on the Suns, and they really had to be careful of the Lakers' pursuit. At present, the Lakers are only 1.5 wins away from the Suns, and the Suns' next schedule is still very difficult, every game is a key battle, once they can't win in a row, it is very likely to lose the sixth place in the West. For the Lakers, if they can rush to the sixth place, it will definitely be the best result, which means that they don't have to play in the play-offs, and the Thunder are currently third in the West, and they are at an absolute disadvantage in terms of experience.
I really didn't expect that in the end, the Lakers' counterattack made the Western Conference playoffs pattern usher in a big change again. Some time ago, the Thunder let Alexander and Jalen Williams rest in a row, and the team directly suffered a wave of three consecutive defeats, fell to the third place in the West, and gave up the fight for the top spot, obviously not wanting to meet a difficult opponent in the first round, the Lakers are a team. It's just that I didn't expect the Lakers to rush up now, and maybe even finish sixth, so that the situation in the West will change again. Now that there is no team in the West that can be determined, the Clippers' fourth position is somewhat stable, and everything else may change, which also makes the last few games more interesting.