The Los Angeles Lakers will face the Houston Rockets in the first round of the playoffs, and they will do it from home. Los Angeles stayed fourth in the Western Conference after Denver beat San Antonio in the regular season finale, keeping the Lakers from climbing to third in the West.
That result mattered because the Lakers would have jumped to third if the Nuggets had lost, and homecourt now comes with a sharp catch: Los Angeles is expected to be an underdog without Luka Doncic and Austin Reaves. Doncic, who had been playing like the MVP before suffering a grade two hamstring injury, went to Europe for specialized treatment, and the Lakers have not given a timetable for his return.
Three straight wins to close the regular season gave Los Angeles momentum, but they do not change the math. The Lakers defeated the Minnesota Timberwolves earlier in the season without Doncic, and they will have to lean on that kind of resilience again against Houston.
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The Rockets bring an elite defense and have struggled in the clutch, which gives the Lakers a path if they can hold up on their end. The bigger problem is the gap in scoring: the Lakers must defend well, find enough offense, and survive the opening round without their top two scorers if they want a chance to get Doncic back later in the postseason. That trade keeps getting more lopsided for Los Angeles, and the first round will show whether homecourt is enough to keep them alive.
