The Los Angeles Lakers are expected to meet the New Orleans Pelicans on Tuesday night to determine which team will be the 7th seed in the 2024 Western Conference playoffs.

Some sections want the Lakers to intentionally lose the game and rather play for the 8th spot against the Sacramento Kings or Golden State Warriors on Friday night. That’s because if the Lakers advance to the 7th slot, they will meet the defending champion Denver Nuggets in the first round of the playoffs.

If the L.A. squad finishes 8th, they will meet the Oklahoma City Thunder in the opening round of the playoffs. However, former NFL player and undisputed host Keyshawn Johnson believes that the Lakers are better suited to facing the Nuggets in the first round than avoiding them.

“You want them early and not later, because if you look at it, and go back a couple of weeks, the Lakers have been playing pretty good basketball,” said Johnson.

According to Keyshawn, the Purple and Gold are playing their best basketball of the season right now. The Lakers concluded their regular season strong with an 11-3 record in their last 14 games. This included going 5-1 on a road trip that began with a win in Milwaukee. Then, the La La Land squad finished their regular season with a 16-point blowout win over the Pelicans last Sunday.

Since the Lakers are playing the Pelicans in the 7 vs. 8 play-in tournament game on Tuesday night, they have stayed in New Orleans since the weekend, which gives Anthony Davis enough time to rest up after he suffered back spasms in their last game. With AD well-rested, they should have no issue conducting business against the Pelicans.

“I’m just listening to the pundits out there in the world and it’s almost like Lakers, LeBron hate. They want the Lakers to run from the Denver Nuggets. ‘You should slip down to the 8th seed so maybe you get OKC instead’. They’re not altering it like that. You screw around and you lose, messing about and talking about how we want to avoid Denver. No! We’re fresh. This is not the Western Conference Finals of the year past.” added Johnson.

Some in their camp hoped to avoid the Nuggets in the first round because Denver has won its last eight matchups against Los Angeles. The current champs swept the Lakers during the 2023 Western Conference Finals and have won their last four regular-season encounters against them, including three games this season. But Keyshawn looks at things differently.

“Getting to Denver is the most essential thing, not avoiding Denver. I understand that they beat us 8 consecutive times, that’s cool. But they didn’t beat us in eight consecutive seven-game series. They beat us in one offs,” he remarked. “Now let’s see if we can play better than we did in the closing six minutes of the games in last year’s Western Conference Finals versus Denver. I like our prospects. Denver is supposed to be our adversary, if we go past them, you can cash our check that we’re going to the Finals.”

Although the Lakers were swept by the Nuggets in last season’s WCF, they were competitive in every game but did not close out games well, enabling Denver to win or steal the game in the final six minutes.

With LeBron recently claiming that his body feels better now than last year and AD coming off his healthiest season, Johnson believes that the best chance for a healthy Lakers squad to win the Nuggets is in the first round when Denver hasn’t peaked yet. That’s good to hear, but it is easier said than done.