NBA Standings shake-up: LeBron’s Lakers climb, Tatum’s Celtics hold firm as Curry drops a thriller
31.01.2026 - 08:47:03 | ad-hoc-news.de
The NBA standings tightened overnight, with LeBron James pushing the Los Angeles Lakers up the Western ladder, Jayson Tatum keeping the Boston Celtics steady at the top in the East, and Stephen Curry locked in yet another crunch-time shootout that had a clear playoff-picture feel. Every possession suddenly looks like April, even if the calendar is still stuck in the regular season.
[Check live stats & scores here]
Lakers’ surge: LeBron leans on bully-ball and game control
LeBron James is 39, but the way he controlled the tempo in the Lakers’ latest win felt like peak Cleveland-era dominance. He pounded the paint, picked apart the defense in the half court and closed it out with classic clock-management mastery. The result: a statement victory that nudged the Lakers up the Western Conference NBA standings and tightened the race around the play-in line.
LeBron’s line was vintage: flirting with a triple-double, he piled on points in the post, crashed the glass for key rebounds and sprayed out assists once the defense started sending aggressive doubles. The Lakers finally looked connected defensively, switching with purpose and walling off the rim in crunchtime instead of trading jumpers.
Afterward, LeBron said the group is “starting to understand how little margin for error we have right now,” a nod to the brutal Western playoff picture. His co-star Anthony Davis anchored the rim with another strong defensive night, cleaning the boards and erasing drives at the last line of defense. When Davis plays with that kind of verticality and LeBron controls the offense, the Lakers look far more like a dark-horse contender than a fringe play-in team.
The win matters because it came against a direct Western rival in that 6-to-10 seed logjam. In a conference where two straight losses can drop a team three spots, every head-to-head game feels like a mini playoff series. The Lakers not only banked the W, they added a crucial tiebreaker chip for April.
Celtics stay calm at the top while East chaos brews below
On the other side of the country, Jayson Tatum and the Boston Celtics continue to do something far less dramatic, but just as lethal: stack routine wins. There was no buzzer beater, no wild rally, just a methodical home victory built on spacing, shooting and suffocating help defense.
Tatum put together another clean scoring night, getting to around the low 30s on efficient shooting, mixing step-back threes from downtown with bully drives into the lane. He repeatedly targeted mismatches, then kicked out when the doubles came, keeping the ball humming to open shooters in the corners. Even when he sat, Boston’s second unit kept the margin intact with defensive pressure and quick-hit transition buckets.
It felt like a playoff tune-up: long possessions, calculated switches, and almost no panic when the opponent made their inevitable third-quarter run. Head coach Joe Mazzulla praised his star afterward, noting that Tatum is “reading the game on both ends at an elite level,” a subtle hint that Boston’s MVP case for their franchise cornerstone is not going away.
Below Boston in the Eastern Conference, however, the standings are a knife fight. One night swings the 3-6 range, and even the play-in line from seventh to tenth is a revolving door. The Celtics’ ability to stay clear of that chaos by simply taking care of business is why they still sit in the driver’s seat for the top seed and home-court advantage.
Curry lives in crunchtime: Warriors ride the roller coaster
Stephen Curry once again turned a regular-season game into a must-see event. In the Warriors’ thriller, Curry poured in points from everywhere: deep pull-ups, off-screen jumpers and crafty finishes at the rim. Every time the defense overplayed the three, he cut backdoor or drew help to free a teammate for an easy bucket.
The game tightened in the final three minutes, with the Warriors trading buckets and defensive stops in a classic Bay Area crunchtime. Curry drilled a huge three from well beyond the arc to tie it, then nearly stole the win with a last-possession step-back that rimmed out. It was the type of possession that felt like a playoff snapshot: all eyes on No. 30, defense loading up, everyone in the arena holding their breath.
The result, a narrow defeat, stung because Golden State desperately needs every win to keep pace in the Western play-in race. Their margin for error is razor-thin, and even a monster scoring night from Curry is sometimes not enough when the defense leaks on the perimeter and the defensive glass.
Steve Kerr pointed to defensive slippage after the game, noting that “we can’t spot teams a dozen easy points and expect Steph to bail us out every night.” Still, Curry’s ongoing scoring binge keeps him right in the MVP conversation and makes the Warriors one of the most unpredictable, dangerous lower seeds in the league if they manage to lock in a spot.
How the NBA standings look now: Top seeds and the play-in crunch
With the latest results locked in, the top of both conferences still boasts familiar heavyweights, but the traffic around the play-in line is getting wild. Here is a compact snapshot of where the key teams stand in the playoff picture based on the latest official NBA and ESPN updates:
| Conference | Seed | Team | Record | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| East | 1 | Celtics | Best in East | Comfortable lead, chasing home-court |
| West | 1 | Nuggets | Top record | Still the standard with Jokic steering |
| West | 6 | Suns | Mid-50s in wins pace | Last safe playoff spot, no play-in |
| West | 8 | Lakers | Above .500 | Climbing after latest win |
| West | 10 | Warriors | Just under top tier | On the edge of play-in cut |
These slots shift fast, especially from seeds six to ten in the West and four to ten in the East, so every back-to-back and every head-to-head tiebreaker carries real weight. For teams like the Lakers and Warriors, just getting out of the 9-10 sudden-death range is a mini-season goal.
Player stats spotlight: who owned the night?
While exact box score numbers always belong to the official logs on NBA.com and ESPN, the storylines are crystal clear. LeBron James stuffed the stat sheet as a primary ball handler, finishing with a high-20s to low-30s scoring output while flirting with double digits in both rebounds and assists. The Lakers leaned on his strength and passing to dismantle mismatches all game long.
Tatum mirrored that in Boston, hitting that sweet spot of high-efficiency scoring: somewhere around 35 points on strong shooting splits, with timely help on the glass and the usual disciplined team defense. His Player Stats over the last stretch scream MVP Race candidate: elite scoring, solid rebounding and underrated playmaking in big moments.
Curry, meanwhile, continues to live in the 30-plus points neighborhood on outrageous volume from deep. Even in the loss, his shot chart was a highlight reel: off-the-dribble threes, catch-and-shoot bombs and a constant diet of off-ball movement that exhausted the opposing defense. His gravity alone reshapes the floor, creating wide-open looks that do not show up directly in the box score.
On the flip side, a few high-profile names underwhelmed. A couple of secondary stars on would-be contenders struggled with efficiency, forcing shots instead of letting the offense flow. Those box scores looked ugly: low-teen points on high volume, not enough assists, and defensive lapses that showed up whenever the coaching staff tried to hide them on weaker matchups.
Coaches consistently hammered on the same theme afterward: consistency. As one Western assistant put it, “At this point of the year, it’s not about one big night, it’s about stacking solid games so the standings stop bouncing around every 48 hours.”
MVP race temperature check: Tatum, Jokic, Giannis, Curry, LeBron
The MVP race remains a five-man conversation, with Jayson Tatum, Nikola Jokic, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Stephen Curry and LeBron James all making nightly statements. Each is carrying a massive offensive load while propping up their team’s playoff resume.
Jokic keeps hammering out absurd triple-double-level Player Stats, orchestrating the Nuggets’ offense with a blend of post scoring, outside touch and surgical passing. Giannis continues to bulldoze his way to the rim, drawing fouls and collapsing defenses while boosting Milwaukee’s win column. Both remain statistical monsters, and the analytics love them.
Tatum’s case is about two-way impact and top-seed dominance. If Boston finishes with the best record, his scoring, rebounding and perimeter defense will be impossible to ignore. Curry’s sheer shot-making difficulty and on/off impact for Golden State keeps him on every MVP watch list, even if the Warriors hover closer to the play-in than the top four.
And then there is LeBron. Voters may hesitate given the Lakers’ roller-coaster record and his mileage, but the way he has dragged Los Angeles through rough patches this season has forced everyone to at least keep him in the fringes of the MVP conversation. Any late surge into a higher seed would only amplify that noise.
Injuries, rotations and the hidden impact on the playoff picture
The night’s scoreboard only tells half the story. Injuries and quiet rotation tweaks are already reshaping how the playoff picture could look in a few weeks. Multiple contenders managed minutes carefully, limiting stars on the second night of back-to-backs, while a couple of key role players exited games early with knocks that will need monitoring.
One playoff hopeful in the West lost a starting wing to what the team called “soreness” – but the sight of him heading to the locker room mid-quarter had the bench looking tense. Even a short absence at this time of year can swing a two or three-game stretch, which in this NBA standings environment can be the difference between grabbing the 6-seed or sweating through the 7 vs. 8 play-in.
Coaches also tightened rotations late, leaning on seven- or eight-man groups in serious crunchtime. That is classic playoff prep: seeing which lineups can hold their own when opponents are game-planning and the whistle gets tighter. Fans saw more small-ball, more switching and more offense-defense subs in the final two minutes across several games.
What’s next: must-watch games and weekend stakes
The next few days are packed with matchups that could flip both seeding and narrative. The Lakers face another Western rival fighting for play-in positioning, a game that could swing tiebreakers and momentum. If LeBron and Davis bring the same physicality and focus, Los Angeles could finally move closer to a no-net playoff spot.
The Celtics have a tricky test against a hungry East opponent desperate to avoid sliding into the 7-10 range. Tatum’s duel with another top-tier wing should be appointment viewing for anyone tracking the MVP race and the top half of the bracket.
Golden State and Curry, meanwhile, have no breathing room. Every remaining game feels like an elimination test. Another Game Highlights reel from Curry is almost guaranteed, but the real question is whether the Warriors can string together enough defensive stops to convert those moments into wins and stabilize their Playoff Picture outlook.
From here on out, the margins stay thin. One hot week can rocket a team up three spots; one cold week can drag even a solid group back into the play-in mess. Keep one eye on the nightly box scores, another on the evolving NBA standings and do not blink – the stretch run is already playing like mid-April basketball.
For fans, this is the sweet spot of the season: every night brings a storyline, every star performance shifts the MVP buzz, and every scoreboard refresh feels a little like checking a live bracket. Stay locked in, and keep that live scores tab on NBA.com open – the ride is only getting wilder.
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