The Los Angeles Lakers, like the rest of the NBA, are eagerly awaiting the moment when they can return to the court.
With the league shut down due to the coronavirus, no one can be certain exactly when the league will be back in action. However, when they do, it appears likely that the 2020 NBA playoffs will look different than what fans are used to.
With the majority of the 2019-20 NBA season already completed, the league is focusing on how to manage the playoffs in a shorter time frame while still mitigating the risk of COVID-19. As host Trevor Lane and company discuss on this episode of the Lakers Nation Podcast, what playoff format the league eventually settles on could make a major impact on the team’s championship odds.
For the time being, it appears the NBA is hoping to house the playoffs within one city and would likely be playing games without the presence of fans in the building. Since fans are unlikely to be present anyway, the playoffs would not need to be held in an NBA city, opening up options like Las Vegas, Atlantic City, Louisville, and Hawaii. The goal would be to keep players as safe as possible by doing away with travel between cities, which would take place during a typical playoff series.
They break down the impact that could have on the Lakers and also celebrate the news that the NBA is only looking at a single-elimination tournament-style playoffs as a last resort. With the Lakers sitting in first place, the closer the NBA can get to the standard seven-game series, the more it will benefit Los Angeles.
Lower-seed teams have more of a chance at slipping through with an upset win or two, but a seven-game series decreases the likelihood of that happening dramatically. Currently, it sounds as though the NBA is looking at best-of-three series, which isn’t ideal but it is certainly a better option for the Lakers than a single-elimination game.
Plus, they dig through the game log and each of them came up with a list of five games that fans should go back and watch from this season. With so many great moments for the first-place Lakers this season even with a large chunk of the schedule currently missing, it wasn’t an easy task to narrow it down to just five.
With plenty of time indoors ahead, they provide fans with the details on how to get their Lakers fix.
