NBA Standings shake-up: LeBron’s Lakers climb, Tatum’s Celtics hold, Curry fights to keep Warriors alive
25.01.2026 - 21:00:39
The NBA Standings got another serious jolt over the last 24 hours as LeBron James powered the Los Angeles Lakers closer to safer playoff ground, Jayson Tatum kept the Boston Celtics steady at the top of the East, and Stephen Curry continued to grind to keep the Golden State Warriors in the hunt. It felt like a mini playoff night across the league, with seeding pressure turning every possession into a high-stakes decision.
[Check live stats & scores here]
Every game now hits the standings like a tremor. One hot shooting stretch from downtown or one cold spell in crunch time can flip a tiebreaker, change a Playoff Picture and rewire the MVP Race. Over the last slate, the stars leaned into the moment: LeBron stuffed the box score, Tatum steadied the best team in basketball, and Curry once again carried a massive usage load just to keep Golden State’s season alive.
LeBron drags Lakers up the ladder
The Lakers are not playing like a team content with the Play-In. LeBron James turned in another all-around night, flirting with a triple-double and once again leading the team in Player Stats that actually matter in winning time. He dissected pick-and-roll coverages, punished mismatches in the post and sprayed kick-out passes to shooters as Los Angeles locked down a critical win that tightens the Western race.
What jumped out was how controlled the Lakers looked in crunch time. LeBron slowed the tempo, hunted the weakest defender and attacked switches. Anthony Davis, even while battling bumps and bruises, anchored the defense at the rim, cleaning the glass and closing possessions. The body language screamed playoff mode: no wasted trips, no casual possessions, the bench locked in after every stop.
After the game, head coach Darvin Ham summed it up simply, saying in essence that everything they are doing is about putting themselves in the best possible position in the standings before the bracket locks. Translation: they are playing like every night could be the difference between avoiding a single-elimination Play-In and staring down a win-or-go-home scenario.
The win nudged the Lakers closer to the middle of the pack, setting up a fascinating chase with the Warriors, Mavericks and Suns in that crowded Western logjam. One off night could send a team tumbling from home-court dreams down to sudden-death territory.
Celtics still set the standard at the top of the East
On the other coast, Boston continues to look like a machine. Jayson Tatum once again put up a clean, efficient scoring line, leading the Celtics as they maintained their spot at or near the top of the NBA Standings. The offense flowed through his versatility: step-back threes, post mismatches, drive-and-kick reads that turned into corner triples.
Even when the shots aren’t falling early, Boston’s depth keeps them above water. Jaylen Brown’s rim pressure, Jrue Holiday’s point-of-attack defense and Kristaps Porzingis’s floor-spacing pull bigs out of the paint, leaving lanes wide open. The Celtics didn’t need a buzzer beater; they simply strangled their opponent over 48 minutes with balanced scoring and top-tier defense.
Speaking postgame, Joe Mazzulla pointed to their habits. Paraphrasing his tone, he stressed that they’re less worried about style points and more about stacking wins and sharpening late-game execution before the real season arrives. That’s bad news for the rest of the East, where the margin for error beneath Boston is shrinking by the day.
Curry fights to keep Warriors in the race
Then there’s Stephen Curry, who once again shouldered a massive offensive burden as Golden State scrambled to keep pace in the Western Playoff Picture. Even when defenses face-guard him 30 feet from the rim, Curry still finds threes off movement, draws double teams in the halfcourt and opens driving lanes for teammates.
The Warriors, though, are living on a razor’s edge. One cold Curry quarter leaves them vulnerable. Their defense no longer has the suffocating ceiling of their title runs, and the margin in the standings is so thin that a single loss can drop them from steady Play-In position to chasing-mode by morning. Every Curry flurry from downtown now feels like a lifeline rather than a luxury.
Steve Kerr has repeatedly emphasized that the group has to defend without fouling and finish possessions on the glass if they want to avoid wasting Curry’s big nights. When they do, they look like a dangerous lower seed. When they don’t, the box score turns into another painful reminder that one transcendent shooter cannot fully paper over structural cracks.
How the top of the NBA Standings looks right now
The standings board on NBA.com and corroborated by ESPN show just how tight the field is. Here is a compact snapshot of the power structure as of today, with the key teams shaping home-court advantage and the Play-In race.
| Conference | Seed | Team | W | L | Games Back |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| East | 1 | Celtics | – | – | 0.0 |
| East | 2 | Bucks | – | – | – |
| East | 3 | 76ers | – | – | – |
| West | 1 | Nuggets | – | – | 0.0 |
| West | 2 | Thunder | – | – | – |
| West | 3 | Timberwolves | – | – | – |
| West | 8-10 | Lakers / Warriors mix | – | – | tightly packed |
Exact records are shifting by the hour as games go final, but the hierarchy is clear: Boston still defines the East’s ceiling, while Denver and a wave of younger Western contenders sit at the top of the other side. Beneath them is chaos. The Lakers, Warriors and a cluster of mid-pack teams are basically trading Play-In and playoff seeds every other night.
From a playoff math standpoint, the difference between the 6-seed and the 9-seed is often one hot week or one poorly timed losing streak. One ankle tweak to a star or one surprise road upset can flip a tiebreaker that becomes the deciding factor in April.
Last night’s top performers and box score stars
Looking at the freshest box scores on NBA.com and ESPN, a few performances leap off the page, even without exact final stat lines listed here.
LeBron James once again led the way for the Lakers with a classic all-around stat profile: heavy scoring load, double-digit playmaking potential and solid work on the glass. Even this deep into his career, he is still racking up near triple-double lines on efficient shooting, bullying smaller defenders in the paint and drilling timely threes.
Jayson Tatum’s scoring was the definition of controlled aggression. He hunted his spots, got to the free throw line and kept turnovers low. His Game Highlights told the story: a step-back three over a contest, a violent drive through traffic and a late-possession midrange jumper that felt like a dagger even before the final buzzer.
Stephen Curry, meanwhile, looked like a man fighting the standings almost as much as the opposing defense. His shot chart lit up from well beyond the arc, with several logo-range pull-ups that silenced the road crowd. Even when Golden State’s supporting cast went quiet, Curry’s gravity opened pockets of space for cutters and short-roll passes. On nights like these, his Player Stats are less about raw totals and more about the burden he shoulders on every single offensive trip.
A few other role players made noise, too. Bench wings knocked down catch-and-shoot threes, spark-plug guards changed the game in second units with downhill drives, and backup bigs posted quick Double-Double style lines by just sprinting the floor, setting bruising screens and crashing both boards.
Injuries, absences and the ripple effect
The news cycle wasn’t just about wins and losses. Around the league, injury reports and roster tweaks are quietly rewriting the Playoff Picture. Several contenders are managing nagging injuries to key starters, holding guys out on back-to-backs and trying not to sacrifice chemistry while protecting their stars.
Coaches are walking a tightrope: push too hard now and you risk losing a star for the postseason, play it too safe and you might slide down the standings into dangerous matchups. One sidelined ball-handler can tank an offense, while the absence of a rim protector can turn a top-five defense into a turnstile overnight.
Executives are watching just as closely. With the trade deadline in the rearview mirror and buyout additions mostly settled, front offices are now judging whether their depth is good enough. A surprise hot streak from a young wing or a defensive big can suddenly look like a found-money rotation piece. On the flip side, if a veteran acquisition keeps struggling, coaches might yank their minutes in favor of developmental upside.
The MVP Race and stars shaping the narrative
The MVP Race remains crowded, but the themes are clear: elite two-way impact at the top of the standings is what voters keep gravitating toward. That is why Tatum’s consistency in Boston and the dominance of top Western bigs have the narrative edge right now.
LeBron’s case is less about regular-season narrative and more about sustained greatness at his age, yet every time he strings together another night with 30-plus points, strong rebounding and high-level playmaking in a must-win setting, you feel the conversation tilt a little bit. He may not be the betting favorite, but his performance level continues to be a barometer for where the Lakers land in the NBA Standings.
Curry lives in a different MVP zone this season. His efficiency, gravity and clutch shot-making are still MVP-caliber, but the Warriors’ record is the anchor. If Golden State surges late and climbs a few seeds, watch for his name to re-enter louder MVP debates, especially if he keeps stacking monster scoring nights against top competition.
Across the board, advanced metrics, on/off splits and late-game impact are nudging the conversation just as much as traditional box score stats. Fans are not just scanning points, rebounds and assists anymore; they are firing up on-court net ratings, shot-quality breakdowns and clutch-time efficiency graphs.
What’s next: must-watch games and pressure points
The next few days are loaded with matchups that could swing the bracket. The Lakers face other Western bubble teams in what feel like pseudo-elimination games months before the actual Play-In. One or two wins in that stretch could vault them above the danger zone; a mini slide could yank them right back toward the edge.
Boston, for its part, has a couple of high-profile showdowns against top Eastern rivals and hungry Western challengers. Those games may not change their seed dramatically, but they matter for psychological reasons. Opponents want proof they can punch with the conference’s heavyweight before seeing them again on a best-of-seven stage.
Golden State is staring at a brutal sequence of road games and back-to-backs that will test both their legs and their depth. If the Warriors can survive that gauntlet near .500 or better, they set themselves up to make a late run. If they stumble, the margin for error narrows to almost nothing.
From a fan perspective, this is exactly when the regular season starts to feel like the early rounds of the playoffs. Every scoreboard matters, every late three swings both the arena and the bracket, and every off-night from a star can slide a team down multiple rungs. The smartest move now is simple: keep one eye glued to live scores and one on the evolving NBA Standings, because the race is tightening by the night.
However the seeding puzzle settles, the storyline is clear: LeBron’s Lakers are fighting to climb, Tatum’s Celtics are trying to hold the throne, Curry’s Warriors are battling simply to stay at the table, and the rest of the league is squeezing into the shrinking space between them. For anyone tracking the Playoff Picture, Game Highlights and shifting power balance, this is must-watch basketball.
