Finishing with a 53-29 record in the regular season, the Los Angeles Lakers finished as the fourth seed in the Western Conference. They accomplished this despite several injuries to key players throughout the season, and despite many national experts predicting before the season began that they would simply be a tournament team.
The Lakers will face the fifth-seeded Houston Rockets in the first round of the playoffs, which means LeBron James will face Kevin Durant for the first time in the postseason since the 2018 NBA Finals. Given that they are shorthanded without Luka Doncic and Austin Reaves, they will almost certainly be significant underdogs, but they should also have a real chance to advance, especially since they will have home field advantage.
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Game 1 of that series will take place at 5:30 pm Los Angeles time at the Crypto.com Arena, and can be seen on ABC.
If the Lakers can get past Houston, they will most likely face the defending NBA champion Oklahoma City Thunder in the second round of the playoffs. While a win there would be highly unlikely, anything could be possible if Doncic and Reaves can return to action.This article originally appeared on LeBron Wire: Game 1 of Lakers’ first-round playoff series set