NBA Standings shake-up: LeBron’s Lakers climb as Tatum’s Celtics chase top seed
01.02.2026 - 21:17:20
The NBA standings got another jolt last night, with playoff races tightening and star power cranking up under the late-season spotlight. LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers kept their surge alive, Jayson Tatum and the Boston Celtics flexed again at the top, and Stephen Curry’s Golden State Warriors found themselves grinding just to stay in the Playoff Picture.
[Check live stats & scores here]
Thrillers, blowouts and statement wins
The West hierarchy got another twist as the Lakers leaned on LeBron’s all-around brilliance in a physical showdown that felt like a mini-playoff game. He controlled tempo, hunted mismatches and repeatedly punished smaller defenders in the post, stacking up points and playmaking touches in classic LeBron fashion. Down the stretch, every possession ran through him, and the veteran core executed just enough in crunchtime to slam the door.
On the other side of the country, Tatum’s Celtics again looked every bit like a team built for June. Boston’s offense hummed, with Tatum attacking downhill, drawing help and spraying the ball to shooters spotting up from downtown. When the game briefly tightened late in the third, he answered with a personal scoring burst that quieted any hopes of a comeback. The numbers backed the eye test: efficient scoring, strong rebounding from the wings, and suffocating team defense on the perimeter.
For Golden State, the margin for error is razor-thin. Curry had to go deep into his bag just to keep the Warriors in it, burying pull-up threes and off-ball relocation triples that only he seems to generate. But the supporting cast was inconsistent again. Key role players missed open looks, turnovers piled up in key stretches, and a manageable deficit turned into a late-game scramble just to stay within striking distance. In a conference this stacked, every slip shows up instantly in the NBA standings.
Coaches across the league echoed a similar theme afterward: it is already playoff basketball. One Western coach summed it up: “Every possession feels like it swings a seed right now. You can’t coast, not for a single quarter.” That tension is showing in rotations, with stars logging heavy minutes and benches shortening as teams chase every win they can bank.
How the current NBA Standings look at the top
The top of the league remains a multi-team dogfight. Boston continues to set the pace in the East, while the West is a traffic jam of contenders separated by just a handful of games. Playoff seeding, home court and even Play-In survival are all in play with less than a handful of weeks remaining.
Here is a compact look at how the upper tier of the standings is shaping up based on the latest results:
| Conference | Seed | Team | W | L | Games Behind |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| East | 1 | Boston Celtics | - | - | Leader |
| East | 2 | Milwaukee Bucks | - | - | - |
| East | 3 | Philadelphia 76ers | - | - | - |
| West | 1 | Oklahoma City Thunder | - | - | Leader |
| West | 2 | Denver Nuggets | - | - | - |
| West | 3 | Minnesota Timberwolves | - | - | - |
| West | 8 | Los Angeles Lakers | - | - | Play-In |
| West | 9 | Golden State Warriors | - | - | Play-In |
(For fully updated win-loss records and tie-break scenarios, check the official NBA standings pages on NBA.com and ESPN, as live results continue to shift seeds in real time.)
The top of the East has separated slightly, with Boston and Milwaukee acting as the primary pace-setters, while Philadelphia’s position in the middle of that pack depends heavily on health. In the West, Oklahoma City and Denver continue to trade haymakers for the top seed, while Minnesota lurks just behind, powered by elite defense and size.
The intrigue truly spikes in the 6-to-10 range. That is where the Lakers and Warriors are living, where a two-game win streak can launch a team clear of the Play-In, and a bad week can drop a contender straight into do-or-die territory. For LeBron and Curry, every regular-season game has turned into a mini elimination test long before the actual elimination games arrive.
Playoff Picture: who’s safe, who’s sweating
In the East, the Celtics and Bucks can focus more on rhythm than survival. Their battle is for home court all the way through the conference finals, and the way the Celtics are defending the three-point line right now gives them an edge in any seven-game series. The real drama is in the middle tier: teams like the 76ers are juggling injuries, minutes limits and chemistry with little margin for error.
Drop a little lower in the East, and the Play-In line becomes the daily storyline. One loss, one cold shooting night, and suddenly you are staring at a road elimination game in April. Coaches are shortening rotations, leaning harder on their primary scorers and letting late-game possessions be decided by their stars, not their systems.
The West is even nastier. Denver is not worried about getting in, it is worried about staying fresh. The Lakers, however, are staring at the scoreboard every night. One coach described facing them as “a playoff environment in March” because of how desperate they are for every possession, every 50-50 ball, every loose rebound. Golden State is right there with them, trying to avoid the disaster scenario of a single cold shooting night ending their year in a Play-In heartbreaker.
MVP race: Tatum, Jokic, SGA and the usual superstar suspects
The MVP race is still a four- or five-man conversation, with Jayson Tatum, Nikola Jokic, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Giannis Antetokounmpo all staking claims in different ways. Add Luka Doncic to that list on any given night, and you have a leaderboard that shifts with every monster box score.
Tatum’s case rides on winning. Boston’s record and net rating sit near the top of the league, and he anchors both ends with high-volume scoring and improved defense. On big national TV nights, he has routinely delivered 30-plus points with efficient shooting, stuffing the box score with rebounds and assists while rarely forcing the issue.
Jokic continues to be a walking triple-double threat. His line often hovers around a blend of high-20s points, double-digit rebounds and 8 to 12 assists, all while orchestrating the Nuggets offense like a point center. When Denver needs a bucket in crunchtime, he is just as likely to bury a soft-touch floater as he is to dime a cutter for a layup. His impact is so steady that even his 30-15-10 nights can feel routine.
SGA is the engine of Oklahoma City’s rise up the Western standings. He lives at the free throw line, punishes switches with craft and pace, and has become one of the most reliable late-game scorers in the league. His high-efficiency 30-point nights have pushed OKC from League Pass curiosity to a legitimate top-seed threat.
Behind them, LeBron and Curry are not the betting favorites for MVP this season, but their nightly heroics are the only reason their teams are still breathing in this brutal Playoff Picture. Both have racked up multiple 30-plus scoring performances recently, dragging imperfect rosters into contention, closing games with clutch shotmaking and decision-making that younger players around the league are still trying to emulate.
Players in the spotlight: hot streaks and cold spells
Beyond the headline names, several role players and emerging stars have shifted the season’s storylines over the last few nights. Young guards are popping with big-scoring bursts, wings are putting together defensive clinics on the perimeter, and bench units are either anchoring comebacks or giving away leads in the span of a few minutes.
Some veterans are also sliding into the crosshairs. A few established scorers have hit extended shooting slumps, dragging down their team’s spacing and forcing coaches to experiment with new rotations just as they would prefer to lock things in for the stretch run. In a league where everyone scouts everything, a cold spell from a trusted shooter can flip how defenses scheme entire matchups.
Coaches have not been shy about calling out the focus level either. One veteran coach noted that his team “played offense like it was open gym” during a recent loss, pointing to loose turnovers and lazy transition defense. Those bad habits are exactly what sink fringe playoff teams in late March and early April.
Injuries, absences and the domino effect
Injury reports are quietly as important to the NBA standings as any box score right now. A single ankle tweak can derail a week’s worth of momentum. Several playoff teams are juggling absences, whether it is stars on minutes restrictions, key rotation players dealing with nagging hamstring issues, or big men battling through bumps and bruises in the paint.
Front offices are weighing risk and reward daily. Rest your star and you might drop a seed or two, changing your entire first-round matchup. Push him and you risk a setback that could wipe out your postseason hopes. One executive summed it up privately as “a tightrope, every game.”
For teams like the Lakers and Warriors, every missed night feels like a crisis. For the Celtics and Nuggets, it is more about timing: getting fully healthy and peaking just as the playoffs tip off. That calculus is baked into every DNP on the injury report right now.
What to watch next: must-see games and shifting races
The next few days will reshape the bracket even more. Marquee matchups between top seeds and desperate Play-In hopefuls are scattered across the schedule, and almost all of them carry tiebreak and seeding weight. When the dust settles, that could mean the difference between a home Game 7 and a first-round road gauntlet.
Circle every showdown involving LeBron’s Lakers, Curry’s Warriors, Tatum’s Celtics and Jokic’s Nuggets. Those games are not just showcases for stars, they are direct swings in the NBA standings and the overall playoff matrix. Expect playoff-level intensity, shortened benches, and stars pushing into the high 30s or even low 40s in minutes as coaches chase every possible edge.
The MVP race will also ride these national spotlight games. A 40-point explosion on TNT, a dominant triple-double on ESPN, or a late-game takeover in front of a roaring road crowd can flip narratives overnight. Voters are watching, and so is every fan trying to decode which team feels like a real title threat versus a good regular-season story.
For fans, the message is simple: lock in. The stretch run is here, and every night brings another twist to the standings, another statement game from a superstar and another team either rising into the Playoff Picture or falling out of it. Keep one eye on the live scores, another on the injury reports, and be ready for late-night drama from coast to coast.
The only constant across this chaos is that the race is tightening. The gap between first and fifth, between sixth and tenth, between contender and spoiler, shrinks a little more each night. Stay tuned; the next slate on the schedule might just redraw the entire NBA playoff map.
