Andrew Schlecht

2007, the We Don't Believe Dallas Mavericks.

They were there.

And then before last night, it was the 2026 Lakers, but they have now jumped all the way to fourth, which is pretty crazy.

So another interesting anecdote is just the recent success of good clutch teams.

Last year, the best clutch team, the Indiana Pacers, made it all the way to the finals.

The best clutch team two years ago, well, that was the Dallas Mavericks, featuring Luka Doncic, who made it all the way to the finals.

Could the Lakers be the next clutch team to ride their clutchness

all the way to the finals.

It's possible.

And while they didn't have the big mid-season trade like the 24 Mavs did, this Lakers team has certainly been a different team post-All-Star break, which was also the case with that 24 Mavs team.

And one thing they have going for them is how good they are in isolation, which tends to matter in the clutch.

Yeah, it does.

The Lakers tied with the Nuggets for isolation points per possession.

And when you look at players who use at least two ISOs per game, the Lakers have two of the top 11 players in the league as far as points per possession with Luka and Austin Reeves.

Before I move on, just a few more notes.

Most of these teams were very good on this list, these 31 teams.

Average wins was 55 games, but they weren't all good.

The worst team to make this list of 31 very good clutch teams was the 2021 Charlotte Hornets,

who went 33-39, missed the playoffs, but were a plus 21.9 in the clutch.

And another fun one, which I actually remember this one, is the 2024 Bulls, who won 39 games, also missed the playoffs, but they had that insane clutch season from DeRozan, remember?