Lakers News: Win Over Wolves Eliminates West Competitor From Play-In

The herd continues to thin.

In vanquishing the Minnesota Timberwolves last night, 123-111, your Los Angeles Lakers didn't just lap them in the Western Conference playoff standings. Beyond improving to the West's seventh seed with a 39-38 season record and knocking Minnesota down to the eight seed at 38-38, LA also eliminated an also-ran from official postseason contention. 

The 32-45 Portland Trail Blazers, the No. 13 in the conference, are now lottery-bound. To be fair, Portland had thrown in the towel a week ago, when word leaked the club was considering shutting down All-Star point guard Damian Lillard for the year.

At 36-41, the 12th-seeded Utah Jazz are 1.5 games behind the West's tenth seed with just five contests left to play, and seem like the next club to fall. That may not be much of an issue for team president Danny Ainge, who had been planning to tank the 2022-23 season before Lauri Markkanen emerged as an unexpected All-Star. Ainge offloaded two tantalizing talents to the Lakers at the trade deadline in Malik Beasley and Jarred Vanderbilt, and shipped veteran starting point guard Mike Conley to the Minnesota Timberwolves. 

Utah has been somewhat competent since the deadline, but seems to be falling out of the play-in race.

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