Lakers Playoff Watch: 9 West Playoff Hopefuls Active Today

Your eighth-seeded Lakers could make waves today.

Tonight, your Los Angeles Lakers hope to improve to a 40-38 record against the rebuilding 19-59 Houston Rockets. They're hardly the only Western Conference playoff contender looking to shore up its standing today.

Let's run through today's pertinent games for the West's non-Lakers playoff hopefuls, in order of descending conference rank:

• The No. 1-seeded Denver Nuggets (51-26) will host the fifth-seeded Golden State Warriors (41-37), and should be heavily favored to bolster their lead over the rest of the West with a home win against the Dubs, who have a miserable 9-29 road record.
• The second-seeded Memphis Grizzlies (49-28), even without two of their top three big men, are currently leading the 37-40 Chicago Bulls by 15 points in a matinee matchup, because the Bulls are somehow less than the sum of their parts.
• The 47-30 Sacramento Kings, who clinched their first playoff berth in 17 years earlier this week, should improve their record against one of the West's other stinkers, the 19-58 San Antonio Spurs, when the two former Shaqobe-era Lakers playoff also-rans square off tonight.
• The Hall of Famer-heavy Phoenix Suns, the West's fourth seed at 42-35, will host Suns star Chris Paul's former team, Oklahoma City Thunder (38-40), the conference's tenth seed. 
• The ninth-seeded Minnesota Timberwolves (39-39) are looking to take down the now-fully tanking 32-45 Portland Trail Blazers, who have shut down All-Star point guard Damian Lillard for the year. That said, Minnesota is leading by just six points at the half, 62-56.
• The Dallas Mavericks (37-41 despite sporting an All-Star backcout of Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving), the West's 11th seed, head to State Farm Arena to play a hungry 38-39 Atlanta Hawks team also looking to make moves in their own conference standings.
• At present, the 12th-seeded Utah Jazz (who have All-Star forward Lauri Markkanen available for the first time in three games) trail the Brooklyn Nets by double digits, 53-42, at the half. At 36-41, the Jazz are currently just 1.5 games behind the Thunder for the tenth seed in the West. I had really thought, given the recent absences of several of their top scorers, they had basically surrendered. I was dead wrong. They've got some fight left.

With a win, the Lakers would improve to 40-38, tying them with the Pelicans by record. Because LA owns its tiebreaker with New Orleans, this would allow them to supersede the Pelicans in the West standings, and move to the conference's seventh seed with four games left to play.

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