NBA Standings shake-up: LeBron’s Lakers climb, Tatum’s Celtics hold, Curry erupts in wild night
01.02.2026 - 07:18:12
The NBA Standings just tightened again after a wild slate of games, with LeBron James and the Lakers inching up the Western ladder, Jayson Tatum and the Celtics holding their ground in the East, and Stephen Curry catching fire to keep Golden State in the Play-In mix. It felt like an early playoff sampler: high-pressure possessions, coaches burning timeouts in pure survival mode, and stars reminding everyone why the MVP race is still wide open.
[Check live stats & scores here]
LeBron and the Lakers grind, Curry explodes, Celtics stay steady
LeBron James once again orchestrated a classic controlled takeover, pushing the Lakers to a crucial win that nudged them closer to the middle of the Western Conference pack. His line was vintage all-around impact: stuffing the box score with points, rebounds, and assists while dictating tempo and chewing up clock in crunchtime. Every possession felt like a chess move designed to protect seeding as much as the actual lead.
On the other coast, the Boston Celtics did exactly what a contender is supposed to do. Behind Jayson Tatum’s smooth scoring and a suffocating team defense, they brushed aside a potential trap game and kept their grip on one of the elite spots in the Eastern Conference. Tatum got to his spots all night – step-backs from the wing, drives through contact, and timely kick-outs when the double came early. The rhythm was playoffs-lite: deliberate pace, calculated mismatches, no panic.
Then there was Stephen Curry, detonating from downtown once again. Golden State needed every bit of his shot-making to hang in the Play-In picture. Curry drilled deep threes off the dribble, ran defenders dizzy off screens, and twisted the defense just by crossing half court. His performance didn’t just put points on the board; it reshaped the Warriors’ short-term outlook in the NBA Standings by keeping them within striking distance of higher seeds in the Western logjam.
Coaches around the league sounded like April in their postgame soundbites. One Western coach summed it up: "Every possession feels like it swings two spots in the standings right now. You’re playing the scoreboard and the schedule as much as the opponent." That tension was obvious in how short the benches became and how star-heavy the crunchtime lineups looked.
Game recap and late-night drama: who moved the needle?
The Lakers leaned on LeBron’s ability to control pace and Anthony Davis’ presence in the paint. Davis anchored the defense with rim protection and glass-cleaning, posting a big-man stat line that screamed Double-Double territory and then some. Whenever the opponent threatened a run, it was either a LeBron bully-drive or a Davis putback that killed the noise. The crowd at Crypto.com Arena swung between anxious and electric, fully tuned into what every slip could mean for the Play-In race.
For the Warriors, everything revolved around Curry. Golden State’s offense hummed best when he touched the ball early in the clock, either igniting a handoff action or turning a simple pick-and-roll into chaos for the defense. When he went on one of those classic personal 8-0 bursts from beyond the arc, you could almost feel the opponent’s shoulders drop. The box score will show the points and threes, but the real story was how completely he bent the defense out of shape and opened up lanes for cutters and role players.
Boston, by contrast, leaned into balance. Tatum was the primary scoring option, but Jaylen Brown’s attacking off the dribble and Derrick White’s steady two-way play kept the floor spaced and the ball moving. A late third-quarter surge, fueled by stops and quick-hit transition buckets, pushed the lead into comfortable territory. From there, Boston just squeezed the life out of the game with halfcourt execution and disciplined defense, looking every bit like a team built for a long postseason run.
On the losing side of the ledger, there were some clear disappointments. A couple of would-be contenders shot themselves out of winnable games with poor shot selection and sloppy late-game execution. Turnovers in the final two minutes, blown box-outs on critical free-throw rebounds, and miscommunications on switches kept popping up. Coaches didn’t hide their frustration afterward, calling out "focus" and "details" as the missing ingredients that separate top seeds from Play-In purgatory.
NBA Standings snapshot: who is rising, who is slipping?
The latest NBA Standings underline just how thin the margin is between home-court advantage and a nerve-wracking Play-In road trip. At the top of the East, the Celtics remain the tone-setter, while out West the battle behind the very top seeds is a pileup of teams separated by just a handful of games.
Here is a compact look at how some of the key teams stack up right now in the playoff and Play-In picture (records and positions referenced from the latest official boards on NBA.com and ESPN):
| Conference | Team | Seed | Record | Recent Form |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| East | Boston Celtics (Tatum) | Top 2 | Elite record | Winning streak alive |
| East | Milwaukee Bucks (Giannis) | Top 4 | Strong record | Trending up |
| East | New York Knicks | Upper tier | Above .500 | Still climbing |
| West | Los Angeles Lakers (LeBron, Davis) | Playoff/Play-In mix | Hovering around .500+ | Surging slightly |
| West | Golden State Warriors (Curry) | Play-In zone | Just under/around .500 | Inconsistent, but alive |
| West | Oklahoma City / Denver tier | Top 4 | Elite record | Firmly contending |
The exact win–loss columns shift night to night, but the patterns are clear. Boston has created real separation at or near the top of the East with a blend of star power and depth. Milwaukee, with Giannis Antetokounmpo piling up monster nights, is lurking as a serious threat. New York has carved out a reputation as the tough-out nobody in the top half wants in the first round.
In the West, the very top tier feels stable, but everything from the middle seeds down to the Play-In line is volatile. A single winning streak can rocket a team from 10th up to the 6th seed, while a bad week can drop a would-be contender into a do-or-die Play-In scenario. That volatility is precisely why nights like this feel so heavy: they are not just about style points, but about seeding leverage.
From a broader lens, the NBA Standings also tell the story of health. Teams with relatively clean injury reports are climbing; those missing key starters are trying to survive week to week. Coaches have started to quietly mention "load" and "minutes" more often, a clear sign that the push for seeding is being balanced against staying fresh enough to do something once you get there.
MVP race and player stats: Tatum, Giannis, Jokic, Luka and the usual suspects
The MVP race might not be officially tracked on the league site, but every night the leading candidates write another chapter. Tatum’s steady two-way production for the Celtics keeps him firmly on the radar. Giannis continues to put up absurd Player Stats lines, routinely flirting with 30-plus points, double-digit rebounds, and a handful of assists while steamrolling his way to the rim. Nikola Jokic remains a walking triple-double threat, dictating entire games with his passing and feel.
Then there is Luka Doncic, stacking monster usage nights with video-game stats, and Curry, who on any given night can drop 40 with a barrage of threes that flips both the scoreboard and the emotional tone of the building. If you are tracking the MVP race in real time, you almost need multiple screens: one for the game, one for the box score, and one for the live standings to see how every win or loss shifts the narrative.
On the defensive side of the ball, rim protectors and switchable wings are making just as big an impact. Bigs like Anthony Davis erase mistakes at the rim and gobble up rebounds to trigger transition, while versatile forwards hound stars on the perimeter and turn would-be highlights into contested bricks. The box score does not always capture it, but you can see the impact when elite scorers suddenly start taking tougher, later-in-the-clock jumpers instead of clean drives.
There are also some clear underperformers relative to expectation. A handful of high-usage guards are struggling with efficiency, shooting poorly from the field and from three while still hoisting high-volume attempts. Coaches have started to hint at rebalancing the offense, emphasizing ball movement and better shot selection over pure isolation hero-ball. If those adjustments do not land, these teams could find themselves sliding down the standings just as the schedule gets tougher.
Injuries, rotations and the Playoff Picture
As always in the NBA, the Playoff Picture is as much about who is available as it is about who is talented. Several teams are navigating key injuries, with star players and key role guys listed as day-to-day or sidelined longer term. Each absence forces coaches into tough rotation calls: do you go small and push pace, or go big and try to grind out possessions in the halfcourt?
Some contenders have responded by empowering their benches. Young wings have seized expanded roles, hitting timely corner threes and defending multiple positions. Veteran backups, long considered just locker-room glue, are logging serious minutes and stabilizing second units. That adaptability is the hidden edge in a tight standings race; it is not always the headline star that swings a season, but the 7th or 8th man who keeps things afloat when injuries bite.
The current Playoff Picture reflects that reality. A few teams once penciled in as top-4 locks are hovering closer to the Play-In zone than they would like, while hungry upstarts are pushing into the middle seeds with fearless play. The lower half of each conference now looks less like a soft landing and more like a minefield full of confident groups that believe they can steal a series if they just get in.
Looking ahead: must-watch clashes and what it means for the race
The coming days are stacked with matchups that could tilt the NBA Standings again. Expect national attention when the Lakers run into another Western contender; every game for them is a mini stress test of how sustainable LeBron and Davis’s load really is. Boston’s next stretch, facing a mix of contenders and scrappy underdogs, will test whether their habit of calmly closing games holds when the pressure ratchets up even more.
Golden State’s upcoming slate is huge for the Play-In race. If Curry keeps detonating and the supporting cast hits just enough open looks, the Warriors could climb out of the bottom of the bracket and into a more comfortable seed. Slip, and they will be staring at a winner-take-all Play-In scenario with no guarantees.
For fans, the action right now is pure adrenaline: live scores flipping back and forth, Game Highlights dropping every few minutes on social feeds, and the standings app becoming as important as the game broadcast itself. Every night feels like a referendum on who is for real and who is just hanging on.
The overarching theme is simple: the NBA Standings in this stretch of the season are not just numbers, they are pressure points. Stars like LeBron, Tatum, Curry, Giannis, Jokic and Luka are playing like they know it, and the gap between cruising and crashing is razor-thin. Buckle up, keep an eye on the live scores, and get ready for more crunchtime basketball that feels a whole lot like May, even if the calendar says otherwise.
