As you may have seen us do last week, we played with the remaining schedule to show how a 70-game schedule might look based on reports that the NBA ideally wants to get to that mark in order to uphold their regional television deals. But over the weekend, The Athletic’s Shams Charania outlined the two regular season proposals, a 72-game season or a 76-game season, among other options, including using the standings of March 12 and going straight into the playoffs.

For the purposes of this exercise, we will assume that the NBA has elected to have regular season games in some form. We will use the same rules that we established the last time, with the primary one being to preserve the four-game regular season series between division opponents, just to have a clear guideline by which to finish the schedule. After that, we will prioritize trying to make sure everyone finishes their season series in conference. If they are doing this at a single site, they can also mix conferences in order to meet the 76-game schedule.

Game 64 – vs. Houston Rockets

The Rockets were the next game on the schedule for the Lakers, March 12, the day after the NBA was postponed. The Lakers have only played the Rockets twice before this season and another team on the schedule, Oklahoma City, has already played the Lakers three times. The Rockets also threw down on the Lakers in their last meeting, so this one should be fun to watch, rust and all.

Game 65 vs. Utah Jazz

The Lakers have Utah twice on the schedule in the last few games, but they’ve already played them twice. We also skipped over a 4th Denver meeting that was ahead of the Jazz on the schedule, to see if we can go without it.

Game 66 vs. L.A. Clippers

The Lakers and Clippers need to finish their 4-game season series.

Game 67 and 68  vs. Sacramento Kings

The Kings are the first division opponent that the Lakers could face after quarantine. The Kings are also, in theory, still alive for the playoffs in the 70-game format, trailing Memphis by 3.5 games with six games left on their schedule.

Game 69  vs. Phoenix Suns

The Suns have been a scrappy team this year but faded later on in the season. They are, however, a division opponent.

Game 70 vs. Golden State Warriors

The last division opponent that hasn’t gotten a full a four-game series. Also, a little Steph vs. LeBron exhibition never hurt anybody.