NBA Standings shake-up: LeBron’s Lakers, Tatum’s Celtics and Curry’s Warriors jostle for position
01.02.2026 - 16:19:03
The NBA Standings tightened again last night as LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers, Jayson Tatum’s Boston Celtics and Stephen Curry’s Golden State Warriors all felt the pressure of a playoff-style January grind. Seeds flipped, tiebreakers loomed larger and the MVP race kept heating up while every possession suddenly felt like May, not midseason.
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With every contender scoreboard-watching, the latest NBA Standings now frame each night like a mini playoff series. From crunch-time daggers to bruising defense in the paint, the gap between home-court advantage and the play-in is just a couple of cold shooting nights away.
Game recap: Lakers, Celtics and Warriors feeling the squeeze
The Celtics continue to operate like a team that knows it belongs on top of the East. Tatum has been in full control mode, blending scoring bursts with smart playmaking and strong defense on the wing. When Boston hits its stride, the offense hums with spacing and ball movement, and the box score fills up across the board with efficient Player Stats rather than one-man hero ball.
On the other coast, LeBron’s Lakers are living in nightly drama. Even when the Lakers grind out wins, it rarely looks easy: possessions come down to late-clock isolations, LeBron still orchestrates from the top, and Anthony Davis anchors the rim protection and rebounding. The eye test and the numbers line up: when Davis owns the glass and LeBron gets downhill, the Lakers look like a legitimate playoff threat; when the role players go cold from downtown, they flirt with the play-in line.
For Golden State, Curry remains the system. His gravity still bends defenses, pulling bigs out of the paint and opening lanes for cutters. The Warriors live and die with the three, and their Game Highlights are usually a string of Curry treys from way beyond the arc, mixed with moments of chaos when turnovers give opponents free points in transition. In a crowded West, that swinginess shows up directly in the standings: one hot night and they climb; one shooting slump and they slide right back toward the bubble.
Coaches around the league keep hammering the same message after games: it is not about one highlight or one Buzzer Beater; it is about stacking habits. One Western assistant put it bluntly after his team blew a fourth-quarter lead: “If we relax for two minutes, that’s the difference between the 4-seed and the play-in. That’s real right now.”
How the top of the NBA Standings looks right now
The current picture at the top is a study in tiers: a small group of elite teams setting the pace, a logjam of hopefuls chasing home court, and a desperate cluster trying to stay out of single-elimination territory. Here is a compact look at how the race shapes up in both conferences among the headline franchises and their closest rivals.
| Conference | Team | Record | Seed | Streak |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| East | Boston Celtics (Tatum) | Elite record near top of NBA | 1 | Recent strong run |
| East | Milwaukee Bucks (Giannis) | Top-tier winning percentage | Top 3 | Finding rhythm |
| East | Philadelphia 76ers (Embiid) | Firmly above .600 | Top 4 | Powered by MVP-level play |
| East | New York Knicks | Climbing into upper half | Top 6 | Surging |
| East | Miami Heat | Hovering around .500+ | Playoff / Play-In line | Inconsistent |
| West | Denver Nuggets (Jokic) | Near the top of West | 1–2 | Steady |
| West | Oklahoma City Thunder | Top-tier record | Top 3 | Rising |
| West | Minnesota Timberwolves | Strong defensive profile | Top 3 | Defensive grind |
| West | Los Angeles Lakers (LeBron) | Just over or around .500 | Playoff / Play-In mix | Up-and-down |
| West | Golden State Warriors (Curry) | Fighting to stay afloat | Play-In zone | Streaky |
Those rows only tell part of the story, but they highlight the pressure points. Boston, Milwaukee and Philadelphia have created real separation from the middle in the East. Denver sits where champions usually sit: maybe not obsessed with the 1-seed, but absolutely managing the long game and trusting that home-court in the first round will be enough.
Right below them lives the nervous energy of the Playoff Picture. Teams like the Lakers and Warriors in the West, and the Heat and other middle-tier East squads, know they live one injury or one cold stretch away from dropping into a dangerous single-elimination scenario. In other words, every January loss now hits like two.
Playoff Picture: who is safe, who is sweating
Look at the East and Boston feels like a lock for a top-2 seed, barring a major injury. Their point differential, their defense on the perimeter and their deep scoring options all scream contender. The Bucks and 76ers are right there as well. That top line of the bracket looks close to set, but the order will move as head-to-head tiebreakers kick in.
In the West, the defending-champion Nuggets, the upstart Thunder and the rugged Timberwolves are trading haymakers for the top seed. All three play vastly different styles: Denver uses Jokic as a one-man offense; Oklahoma City leans into length, pace and spacing; Minnesota squeezes the life out of you on defense. The result is a nightly reshuffling of the NBA Standings among the top three, often decided by how they handle back-to-backs and road trips against hungry lower seeds.
Then there are the teams that define the word bubble. The Lakers have been straddling the line between the 6-seed safety net and the chaos of the 7–10 Play-In Tournament. One short losing streak has them staring at a winner-take-all game; one hot week from LeBron and Davis and they can surge into a safer spot.
Golden State, meanwhile, is learning that pedigree alone does not guarantee anything. Curry is still good enough to steal road games by himself, but defensive breakdowns and inconsistent bench scoring have left them chasing, not controlling. For them, every Game Highlight package is a mix of brilliance and head-scratching mistakes, all playing out in a tight Playoff Picture.
MVP race: Jokic, Embiid and the stars headlining the season
The MVP Race right now runs through Nikola Jokic and Joel Embiid, with Luka Doncic, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Jayson Tatum all firmly in the conversation. Voters love winning, efficiency and box-score dominance, and this field has all of it in heavy supply.
Jokic has been stacking Triple-Double threats almost nightly, flirting with lines in the neighborhood of 28 points, double-digit rebounds and near double-digit assists on elite shooting percentages. Even when he falls just short of the raw numbers, the impact is impossible to miss; Denver’s offense looks completely different the second he sits.
Embiid, on the other hand, is putting up monstrous scoring nights, living at the free throw line and controlling the glass. His Player Stats jump off the page: high-30s in points on efficient shooting, plus strong rebounding and rim protection. When he dominates in the paint and sprints the floor, Philadelphia often wins by sheer force.
Doncic continues to put up video-game numbers as a heliocentric playmaker, slinging cross-court passes and bombing from downtown. Giannis is quietly posting another season of outrageous scoring and rebounding while driving Milwaukee’s offense in transition. Gilgeous-Alexander has become a two-way terror, crafting his way to 30-plus a night while picking pockets on the defensive end. Tatum’s case leans on winning and completeness: scoring, defense, playmaking and leadership on the team with one of the best records in the league.
What pushes this MVP Race from theoretical barbershop debate into nightly theater is how directly it ties back to the NBA Standings. If Denver, Philadelphia or Boston were to slide, it would hurt their stars’ chances. As long as those teams sit near the top and the stars keep racking up Double-Doubles and statement performances, their candidacies stay in the front row.
Who is hot, who is slipping
Around the league, a handful of players have crashed into the spotlight with recent surges. Young guards and wings are putting up career-highs, dropping 30 or 40 on any given night, and forcing coaches to re-draw scouting reports on the fly. Every morning, the updated box scores reveal another budding star carving out a role.
On the other side, some big names are struggling to find rhythm. Cold shooting stretches from deep, nagging minor injuries and defensive lapses have certain veterans looking a step slow. You see it in the tape and in the advanced numbers: lower efficiency, fewer trips to the line, and less burst late in games. Frustration tends to show up on the second night of back-to-backs, and the standings punish those off nights quickly.
Injuries, tweaks and what they mean for contenders
No serious contender escapes a full season without a few scary MRI days. Across the league, teams are carefully managing minutes and back-to-backs for their stars. When a leading scorer tweaks an ankle or a big man deals with knee soreness, it shows up directly in the win column. Coaches often talk about the “next man up” mentality, but the truth is that there is no real replacement for a MVP candidate.
Management groups are already thinking in playoff terms. Do they push now to climb the NBA Standings and grab home court, or do they prioritize freshness for April and May? Rest versus rhythm is the eternal debate. Sit a star and you might drop a seed; push him through, and you risk having him at less than full strength when the spotlight is brightest.
Must-watch matchups and what is next
The coming days offer a slate that feels tailor-made for fans and for the MVP narrative. Top East contenders will square off in games that could swing tiebreakers. Out West, the Nuggets, Thunder and Timberwolves will continue their tug-of-war at the top, while the Lakers and Warriors face opponents that they simply cannot afford to overlook if they want to stay out of sudden-death territory.
For fans tracking every swing in the Playoff Picture, the checklist is simple: follow the box scores, track the nightly swings in the NBA Standings and keep one eye on the MVP Race as stars battle fatigue and mounting pressure. Crunch-time in January might not come with elimination stakes, but it is laying the groundwork for who gets the easier road and who has to survive the gauntlet.
If the last week is any indication, the separation between the top seeds and the play-in pack will keep shrinking, not growing. Expect more thrillers, more Game Highlights that feel like June, and more nights where one missed rotation or one deep three from Curry or Tatum turns a quiet Tuesday into a playoff-level heartbreaker.
Stay locked in, because the next week could redefine the bracket. And if you are trying to make sense of the chaos, start where players and coaches do: the nightly scoreboard, the fresh Player Stats and the ever-shifting NBA Standings.
