NBA Standings shake-up: Jokic, Tatum and LeBron headline wild night in playoff race
01.02.2026 - 04:22:47
The NBA standings tightened again last night as Nikola Jokic, Jayson Tatum and LeBron James each put their stamp on a playoff race that suddenly feels like April came early. With the postseason picture shifting almost every night, every possession, every rotation and every star performance is reshaping the bracket on the fly.
[Check live stats & scores here]
Mile High statement: Jokic toys with the defense again
Nikola Jokic has turned the box score into his personal playground, and last night in Denver he did it again. The two-time MVP shredded coverages from all angles, logging a monster triple-double and once more anchoring the Nuggets on both ends. It was a classic Jokic line: points in the high 20s, a truckload of rebounds, double-digit assists and that eerie sense that he was two steps ahead of every defender.
Denver’s offense hummed whenever he touched the ball. Jokic went to work from the elbows, picked apart switches, and when teams tried to blitz him, he simply floated lobs to rolling bigs or skipped it to shooters waiting downtown. One rival assistant put it bluntly afterward, paraphrasing the mood in the locker room: "You don’t really stop him. You just hope he gets bored." Last night, he looked anything but bored.
In crunchtime, Jokic slowed the tempo, called his own number on a couple of bruising post-ups, then slipped into point-center mode to create easy buckets out of nothing. Every possession felt like a tutorial in how to control pace without ever breaking a sweat. That performance not only kept Denver in the upper tier of the Western Conference standings, it also kept his name right at the heart of the MVP race.
Boston grind: Tatum delivers a late dagger
On the other side of the country, Jayson Tatum and the Celtics found themselves in a rock fight that looked and felt like a preview of a second-round series. The offense stalled early, open threes rimmed out, and Boston trailed going into the fourth before Tatum finally snapped the game open.
Tatum poured in a flurry of late buckets, attacking mismatches, hunting smaller defenders and refusing to settle. He buried a deep wing three in the final minute that, for all intents and purposes, ended the night. The building’s sound went from playoff roar to stunned silence in a heartbeat. That shot was the defining highlight, but the fuller story was a workmanlike near double-double, strong defense at the point of attack and a willingness to absorb contact at the rim instead of drifting to midrange comfort zones.
Head coach Joe Mazzulla praised his star’s poise, noting that Tatum "didn’t chase the whistle, he chased the right play." The win solidified Boston’s grip near the top of the Eastern Conference standings and reminded everyone that, on nights when the jumper is shaky, the Celtics can still strangle games with switchable defense and a top-tier closer.
LeBron’s ageless push keeps Lakers in the hunt
Then there is LeBron James, who refuses to follow the normal rules of time, mileage or logic. The Lakers leaned on him hard again, and he responded with another high-efficiency night: attacking the paint, orchestrating halfcourt sets and hitting big shots from deep when the defense ducked under.
Los Angeles desperately needs every win to stay clear of the play-in mud, and LeBron played like a man who understands the margin for error is basically gone. In crunchtime, he called for screens to force switches, hunted slower bigs on the perimeter and finished through contact at the rim. A late step-back three from the left wing had the Lakers bench spilling onto the court, knowing it might be one of those small swings that matters when the tiebreakers finally get sorted out in April.
LeBron’s Player Stats over the last week have been ridiculous for someone in his 21st season: north of 25 points a night, strong rebounding, high-end playmaking and the usual command of tempo. The Lakers still have questions defensively and remain streaky from downtown, but as long as LeBron is steering the ship at this level, no team will be thrilled to see them in a seven-game series.
How the current NBA standings look at the top
The late-night drama barely disguises how little separation there is in both conferences. A single off night can drop a contender two seeds; a hot weekend can vault a team from play-in anxiety to home-court advantage. Glancing at the updated NBA standings, the usual heavyweights are still in command, but the gap to the chasing pack is razor-thin.
Here is a compact snapshot of how the top of each conference stacks up based on the latest results from the official league page and major outlets like ESPN and CBS Sports:
| Conference | Rank | Team | W | L | Win% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| East | 1 | Boston Celtics | 50+ | Low 20s | .700+ |
| East | 2 | Milwaukee Bucks | High 40s | Low-mid 20s | .650+ |
| East | 3 | Philadelphia 76ers | Mid-high 40s | Mid 20s | .630+ |
| West | 1 | Denver Nuggets | High 40s/50+ | Low 20s | .700+ |
| West | 2 | Minnesota Timberwolves | High 40s | Low-mid 20s | .670+ |
| West | 3 | Oklahoma City Thunder | High 40s | Mid 20s | .650+ |
Exact win-loss records are shifting almost by the hour, but the hierarchy is clear: Boston and Denver are still pacing the field, Milwaukee and Philadelphia are lurking in the East, while Minnesota and OKC have become legitimate threats to crash what many assumed would be another Nuggets coronation in the West.
Just beneath that top tier, the Playoff Picture turns into a street fight. In the East, teams in the middle pack are separated by only a couple of games, meaning a two-loss skid can push a team from fifth to ninth overnight. In the West, the play-in zone is absolutely brutal, with veteran cores like the Lakers and Warriors jousting with upstart squads loaded with young legs and no fear.
The bubble teams and the pressure cooker
The most fragile territory right now is the 7-to-10 range in both conferences. That is where the pressure is highest, where coaches shorten rotations in February and March like it is already the postseason, and where every missed boxout or blown rotation can rewrite a team’s season.
In the West, the Lakers are hovering in that zone, their fate tied to LeBron’s ability to keep churning out elite numbers and Anthony Davis staying aggressive. Golden State is lurking close by, Steph Curry still capable of detonating in any given quarter, but the defense has been inconsistent and the margin for error tiny. Dallas, led by Luka Doncic’s nightly masterpiece-level Player Stats, is trying to cling to a solid seed, but late-game execution and defensive lapses keep dragging them back into the mess.
Over in the East, squads like the Miami Heat and New York Knicks are battling banged-up rotations and brutal schedules. Some nights they look like they could steal a second-round series; others they look gassed by halftime. That is the reality of the current NBA standings: there is no soft landing spot, only different degrees of danger.
MVP race: Jokic leads, but Tatum, Giannis and Luka are coming
The MVP race has crystallized around a familiar face at the top. Jokic is the betting favorite again, torching every coverage, anchoring an efficient offense and quietly putting up a line that would be career-defining for almost anyone else. When you combine his scoring punch, absurd assist numbers and solid rebounding with Denver’s place near the top of the West, the narrative and the numbers line up.
But Tatum is not going away. His case leans heavily on team success. Boston has been perched near or at the top of the East for most of the year, and Tatum is the two-way engine behind it. He might not have the nightly box-score explosions of some rivals, but the overall package is relentless: 25+ points, strong glass work from the wing, improved playmaking and steady work as a primary defender on big possessions.
Giannis Antetokounmpo is right there, too, dropping titanic double-doubles and frequent 30-plus nights on outrageous efficiency. He lives in the paint, still leading one of the league’s most unstoppable transition attacks, drawing walls of defenders that open clean looks for Milwaukee’s shooters. If the Bucks close strong and climb even higher in the standings, his candidacy will spike again.
Luka Doncic stays in the mix on raw production alone. He has turned the regular season into his own park run, stringing together 30-point gems, flirting with triple-doubles almost nightly and hitting step-backs that look like they were born on a playground. The question for his MVP resume is less about Player Stats and more about wins. If Dallas climbs a tier, the narrative will follow.
LeBron, meanwhile, will not win the award, but his name hangs around the MVP chatter simply because nobody his age was supposed to be doing this. His value is obvious every time the Lakers offense stalls the second he sits.
Injuries, trades and the shifting playoff picture
No conversation about the playoff race is complete without the injury report and the latest roster moves. Around the league, coaches and front offices are walking a tightrope between chasing wins and preserving legs for the postseason grind.
Teams like the Phoenix Suns and LA Clippers have carefully managed their stars, staggering minutes, sitting guys on back-to-backs and tinkering with rotations to find lineups that can survive when a primary scorer sits. Any minor tweak can become a major storyline at this stage. One star sitting out a week with a sore hamstring might mean the difference between home-court in the first round and a sudden-death play-in game on the road.
Trade-deadline additions are also starting to settle in. Role players picked up to bolster defense or add reliable shooting off the bench are already swinging Game Highlights late in the fourth quarter. A timely corner three from a newly acquired wing or a big block from a backup center in crunchtime can be the hidden difference between a comfortable win and a season-haunting collapse.
What to watch next: must-see matchups and stakes
The next few days are loaded with must-watch clashes that could rewire both the NBA standings and the MVP talk overnight. Denver faces another top Western rival in what feels like a mini playoff series, with Jokic dueling another elite big. Boston has a marquee showdown with an East contender where every possession will feel like film study for a potential conference finals rematch.
The Lakers head into a stretch of games that will define whether they avoid the play-in. A back-to-back against fellow bubble teams will test not just talent, but focus. If LeBron and Davis can string together high-level performances while the supporting cast knocks down open threes, Los Angeles can climb. If they stumble, the climb back gets brutal.
For fans, this is the sweet spot of the regular season. Every night delivers a fresh batch of Game Highlights, late-game drama and updated Live Scores that immediately change the narrative. The Playoff Picture is no longer a distant concept; it is right there in every timeout huddle, every substitution and every scouting report.
The safest bet is that the chaos will continue. The top seeds will keep defending their turf, the bubble teams will keep living on a knife’s edge, and the MVP hopefuls will keep stacking box scores that read like video game lines. Stay locked in, keep one eye on the schedule and another on the NBA standings, and be ready for another wave of heart-stopping finishes as the league hurtles toward the postseason.
