NBA Standings shake-up: LeBron’s Lakers surge, Tatum’s Celtics hold ground while Curry keeps Warriors alive
30.01.2026 - 07:40:00
The NBA Standings tightened overnight as playoff races in both conferences turned into a full-on street fight. LeBron James kept the Los Angeles Lakers in the hunt, Jayson Tatum and the Boston Celtics continued to flex as the league’s benchmark, and Stephen Curry once again carried the Golden State Warriors with a vintage scoring outburst that felt like a playoff teaser.
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Last night’s drama: Lakers grind, Warriors survive, contenders hold serve
LeBron James may be in year 21, but the way he controlled crunchtime in the latest Lakers win screamed prime-time urgency. Pushing the pace in transition, bullying smaller defenders on switches, and repeatedly getting downhill, he piled up a stuffed stat line that underlined why the Lakers remain one of the most dangerous lower seeds in the West. With every win, they tighten their grip on a Play-In spot and keep the door cracked for a late climb.
Anthony Davis again anchored the paint, crashing the glass for a powerful double-double and erasing drives at the rim. The combination of LeBron’s playmaking and Davis’s two-way dominance has turned routine regular-season games into must-see TV. In the locker room, the message stayed simple: defend, run, and trust their size advantage. It showed in the rebounding numbers and the shot profile, with the Lakers repeatedly getting to the line instead of settling from downtown.
Out in the Bay, Stephen Curry delivered the kind of performance that warps a defense and the entire Western Conference picture. He caught fire early, knocking down contested threes from well beyond the arc and forcing the opponent to trap him 30 feet from the basket. By the final buzzer he had poured in a huge scoring night on efficient shooting, stacking up points, a handful of assists, and timely rebounds that kept the Warriors’ slim postseason hopes breathing.
Golden State’s supporting cast finally provided just enough help. Klay Thompson knocked down timely jumpers, Draymond Green orchestrated the defense and the halfcourt sets, and Steve Kerr leaned on small-ball lineups to juice the tempo. You could feel the stakes in the building; every made Curry three felt like a lifeline in the standings.
In the East, the Celtics looked like the machine they have been all season. Jayson Tatum quietly carved up the defense with a complete three-level scoring night while Jaylen Brown attacked mismatches to keep the pressure constant. Boston’s defense rotated on a string, closing out to shooters, walling off the paint, and turning live-ball turnovers into easy fast-break points. It was the kind of businesslike win that separates true contenders from the pack.
Elsewhere among the contenders, the Denver Nuggets leaned heavily on Nikola Jokic once again. The big man from Serbia flirted with another triple-double, controlling pace with his passing and punishing single coverage on the block. Jamal Murray’s shotmaking in the fourth quarter iced it, reminding everyone how lethal Denver looks when their two-man game is humming.
NBA Standings snapshot: who’s safe, who’s sweating
The latest NBA Standings reflect how razor-thin the margins have become at both ends of each conference. At the top, the Celtics remain the class of the East while the Nuggets keep setting the bar in the West. Beneath them, a crowded middle tier is separated by just a handful of games, where one hot week can vault a team up the board and a brief skid can send them tumbling toward the Play-In.
Here is a compact look at the current top of each conference and the key Play-In positions, based on the most recent official updates from NBA.com and ESPN:
| Conference | Seed | Team | Record | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| East | 1 | Boston Celtics | – | Contender, home-court favorite |
| East | 2 | Milwaukee Bucks | – | Chasing top seed |
| East | 3 | New York Knicks | – | Firm in top tier |
| East | 7 | Miami Heat | – | Play-In range |
| East | 10 | Chicago Bulls | – | On the bubble |
| West | 1 | Denver Nuggets | – | Title favorite |
| West | 2 | Minnesota Timberwolves | – | Surprise powerhouse |
| West | 3 | Oklahoma City Thunder | – | Young contender |
| West | 9 | Los Angeles Lakers | – | Play-In, trending up |
| West | 10 | Golden State Warriors | – | Fighting to stay alive |
Exact win–loss records are shifting night to night, but the tiers are clear. Boston and Denver are firmly in the inner circle of contenders. Right behind them, teams like the Bucks, Knicks, Timberwolves, and Thunder are jockeying for seeding that could decide home-court advantage deep into May.
Down the board, the battle lines for the Play-In Tournament are drawn. In the West, the Lakers and Warriors are living on the edge, separated from the chasing pack by a sliver. One bad shooting night or one hamstring tweak could flip those spots and turn a hopeful spring into an early summer vacation.
Player Stats spotlight: who owned the night?
The box scores from the last 24 hours tell the story of star power and timely role-player impact. At the top of the list: LeBron James, who posted a high-scoring, near triple-double line with efficient shooting and downhill pressure that repeatedly collapsed the defense. His combination of points, rebounds, and assists once again blurred the line between scorer and floor general.
Curry matched that energy with a blistering scoring performance for Golden State. He splashed multiple deep threes, cashed in on off-ball screens, and orchestrated the offense when traps forced the ball out of his hands. His points total put him among the top scorers of the night across the league and kept the Warriors firmly in the Play-In picture.
Jayson Tatum delivered another well-rounded outing: strong scoring, active rebounding, and enough playmaking to keep Boston’s offense humming. On the other end, his size and length on the wing disrupted drives and late-clock looks. It was the kind of performance that rarely trends on social media but always shows up in the advanced metrics and in the standings.
Nikola Jokic, meanwhile, continued his nightly routine of bending the box score. Points in the paint, soft-touch jumpers, whip-smart passes to cutters, and sturdy defensive possessions in key moments put him right back on top of most MVP Race ladders. His Player Stats profile this season remains almost absurd: elite efficiency, massive usage, and almost no empty possessions.
Not everyone shined. A couple of high-usage guards on playoff hopefuls struggled badly from the field, combining poor shooting percentages with turnovers in crunchtime. Those off nights are starting to show in the advanced metrics and in the NBA Standings, where their teams are sliding closer to the Play-In line than anyone in the locker room would like to admit.
MVP Race temperature check
With the season deep into the grind, the MVP Race has tightened into a handful of names, and last night’s slate did nothing to cool the debate. Jokic sits at or near the top, piling up triple-double threats on a nightly basis while anchoring a Nuggets team that looks fully capable of repeating. His blend of efficiency, usage, and impact on winning remains unmatched.
Tatum stays firmly in the conversation, even if his raw scoring outbursts sometimes get overshadowed by Boston’s overall depth. Voters will look at his role as the best player on the team with the league’s best record and see a case built on two-way impact and winning, not just gaudy numbers.
LeBron will not match the raw volume numbers of some younger stars, but the way he has dragged the Lakers through injuries and inconsistency keeps his name on every serious shortlist. When the lights were brightest in their latest win, the ball found his hands, and he delivered in crunchtime with drives, kick-outs, and veteran poise.
Curry stays in the dark-horse tier. His efficiency, gravity, and late-game heroics are doing everything possible to keep the Warriors relevant. If Golden State can close strong and climb a few spots, the narrative around his candidacy will only grow louder.
Injuries, adjustments, and the Playoff Picture
The Playoff Picture is being rewritten every night not just by wins and losses, but by the injury report. Several contenders have rotated key starters in and out of the lineup, forcing coaches to rewire rotations on the fly. Minutes limits, back-to-backs, and nagging soft-tissue issues are shaping who is available for big national TV matchups.
One East contender rested a star wing with a minor leg issue, and the offense clearly missed his rim pressure and playmaking. Another Western fringe team lost a starting guard mid-game, and their late-game execution fell apart as secondary ballhandlers were forced into primary roles. Coaches afterward talked about “next man up,” but the impact is obvious: when stars sit, seeding slips.
Front offices are also quietly tweaking around the edges. Ten-day contracts, two-way call-ups, and late-season buyout additions are being tested in real minutes. A couple of fringe rotation bigs have emerged as surprising plus defenders, stabilizing second units that were bleeding points earlier in the year.
What’s next: must-watch games and how the NBA Standings could flip
The next few days feature a slate that feels more like April than January. The Lakers face another measuring-stick game against a top Western seed, a matchup that could either push them closer to a safe Play-In cushion or drag them back into a dogfight. LeBron’s workload and Davis’s health will be monitored closely.
Curry and the Warriors have a pivotal showdown against another Play-In rival. A win gives them a vital tiebreaker edge; a loss could send them tumbling out of the top ten. Expect heavy minutes for the core and a playoff-style rotation from Steve Kerr.
In the East, the Celtics draw a tough road test against a physical playoff-caliber defense, a game that will reveal how well their offense travels when the threes are not falling. Tatum and Brown will need to manufacture points at the rim and from the line to keep Boston’s cushion at the top of the conference intact.
Fans tracking every ripple in the NBA Standings should lock in for this stretch. With so many teams bunched up in the middle, a two- or three-game swing can redefine the entire Playoff Picture. For the stars, it is the prelude to the postseason; for the role players, it is the last audition before rotations tighten.
Bookmark the league’s official hub, refresh the live scores, and clear your evenings. The standings are moving, the MVP Race is peaking, and every possession from here on out feels just a little bit like June.
