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This NBA season has been full of injuries to many top players. The Los Angeles Lakers and Brooklyn Nets have rarely had all of their superstars on the court together. Both times the teams have played, they weren’t at full strength.
Despite the injuries, many expect the Lakers and Nets to face each other in the NBA Finals. They have the two most star-studded teams in the sport and have played very well when healthy. The Lakers are the defending champions but many believe the Nets will prevail in the end. However, not Dennis Schroder. The Lakers guard responded to somebody who had the Nets sweeping his team in a four-game series. He had a very stern message for anybody who believes that.
Thanks to Schroder, there’s a bit of bad blood between the Lakers and Nets. He got into a heated argument with Kyrie Irving during the last matchup and it doesn’t seem like they have made amends. A matchup between Los Angeles and Brooklyn would certainly be one of the most exciting in years.
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Schroder Very Confident in Lakers Team
This season hasn’t been perfect for the Lakers. Obviously, injuries have set them back quite a bit. The team is finally starting to get healthy and should be at full strength come playoff time. Schroder doesn’t believe there is a team out there that will truly threaten Los Angeles, even if they end up being a lower seed in the playoffs.
“First off, it don’t matter where we end up at [in the seeding], I believe,” Schroder said Thursday. “End of the day, you want to make the playoffs. You want to win games and you want to focus on us, what we do and try to get better every game until everybody gets back. To this point, because I mean, they [are] hurt, they was hurt, trying to come back. I think we can’t rush nobody and everybody else coming from the bench, just gotta give everything they have to win a game. We just got to get out there [for] 48 minutes, try to give everything we have and try to come up with some wins, of course. I think for me personally, if everybody is there, in a seven-game series, I put my money on us. Like I said, just try to get better game by game and try to get out with some W’s.”
Should Lakers Worry About Seeding?
If the regular season ended today, the Lakers would be playing the Denver Nuggets in the first round of the playoffs. Los Angeles beat them in five games last postseason and there’s no reason to believe they’re any better now that Jamal Murray is done for the year. That would be a solid first-round matchup for the Lakers.
If they dropped one more seed, they would have to face the Clippers in the first round. That would be less ideal. While the Lakers still have the better team in Los Angeles, the Clippers probably have the second-best team in the Western Conference. It’d be much better if they had a round to work out the kinks before they face their toughest competition. Seeding isn’t too important for the Lakers but they should do their best to stay at the five seed at the lowest.
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