Why the math isn’t in the Lakers’ favor to repeat as NBA Cup champions

Although it took the Lakers nearly 10 games to finally do so, the first loss they suffered in the NBA Cup on Tuesday could hardly have gone worse. The Suns exploded – pun intended? – in the third quarter to win in a round against the Lakers.

A blowout loss not only hurts morale, it also greatly hurts their chances of defending the prestigious NBA Cup. With the loss, the Lakers fall into a tie with the Spurs and Suns with 2-1 records.

On top of that, the Lakers wrap up group stage on Friday against an OKC team that is the best in the Western Conference. They are also on the outside looking in, sitting at 1-1 in group play and needing wins in each of their last two games to advance to the quarter-finals.

Basically, it’s a must-win for both teams. The Lakers will be at home, a place they have been far better this season. But it will be a daunting task to come away with the win, which would surely be their best of the season.

Even when everything breaks their way, the fate of the Lakers is out of their control. The Spurs and Suns are playing in their final group game, so the three-way tie becomes just a two-way tie.

The simplest way this plays out is the Lakers win, the Spurs win, and the Lakers have a head-to-head against San Antonio, knocking them out of the bracket. But if the Lakers win and the Suns win, the Lakers lose the head-to-head game.

That leaves them in contention for the one wild card spot. And thus arises the problem of being blown out. Point differential comes into play at that point, and the Lakers’ is now pretty bad. Their only real hope in that department is to win a LOT over the Thunder. And it is very unrealistic.

In Group A, Houston blows everyone away and is the only team with a positive point difference. The second-place Clippers are close at -5, but also have two more games to play. Portland is also 1-1 but has a difference of -14 points, but also the two teams are still playing each other, so one team will be eliminated from the game.

In Group C, the Mavericks beating the Pelicans by 41 points, despite a loss, means that if they beat Memphis on Tuesday, they pretty much have the wild card locked up at worst. Golden State is undefeated but must travel to Denver.

Basically, there just isn’t a realistic scenario where the Lakers can go 3-1 with a negative point differential and get out of the bracket as a wild card. They would actually need the Clippers and Blazers to both lose to take them out of contention, while Denver also beat Golden State by about 20 points, in addition to beating the Thunder by about 10 points.

Do you have it? Good. Do you think so? You shouldn’t.

The simplest and most realistic way to end all of this is for the Lakers to beat OKC on Friday and then sit back and root for the Spurs to win on the road against Phoenix.

Beyond that, there is a very, very small chance that the Lakers will get the opportunity to go back-to-back in the NBA Cup.

You can follow Jacob on Twitter at @JacobRude.