Let’s go ahead and put Denver and Sacramento in the Western Conference playoffs. It’s hard to imagine Memphis and Phoenix falling out of the mix, even with Ja Morant away from the Grizzlies and Kevin Durant still unable to make his home debut for the Suns due to an ankle problem. Also put them on the stand.
And from there, anyone can guess.
West is an absolute mess, and the middle of the pack — the race for the last two guaranteed playoff spots and the four play-in tournament spots — is as confusing and murky as it gets.
“Hope,” Utah coach Will Hardy said, “is a good motivator.”
TRUE. There is still a lot of hope there too.
The West has, more often than not in recent years, been the power broker of the NBA. Not this year. The brightest records are at the top of the Eastern Conference, which is on course to finish with three of the four best records this season – something that hadn’t happened since 2008-09.
The West has become a dead end this year. On Monday, the Los Angeles Clippers were fifth, defending champion Golden State sixth, Minnesota seventh, Dallas eighth. Then came the most confusing part of the mess – Utah was ninth, Oklahoma City was 10th, the Los Angeles Lakers were 11th and New Orleans was 12th – with the four clubs starting the day 33-35.
Simply put, 2½ games separated the fifth-place Clippers from the 12th-place Pelicans. Only 4½ games separated the Clippers from the 13th-place Portland Trail Blazers. It’s hard to imagine a scenario, given how tight the standings are right now, where at least some Western races for the standings don’t happen until the last day.
“Nobody’s really out of their minds right now, at this point in the Western Conference,” Hardy said. “There are a few teams that have fallen, I guess, out of the race, but 5-13 is so tight that every team goes against each other every night with this hope of saying, ‘Hey, if you string a few of them together, you can really jump in the leaderboard. We’d all be lying if we said we don’t check the rankings. We certainly do, but it can be a little distracting.
That’s exactly what the NBA wanted when it added the play-in tournament – intrigue until the end of the season. Only the top six teams in each conference are guaranteed playoff spots at the end of the regular season on April 9; the next four from East and West travel to a qualifying tournament to decide the No. 7 and No. 8 seeds on the respective brackets.
Only three teams – Houston, San Antonio and Detroit – were eliminated. Charlotte is not far from joining this trio. Everyone still has a legitimate chance, at least at the play-in.
“You have to accept the competition,” Miami coach Erik Spoelstra said. “When you’re dreaming about things in the middle of summer, that’s what you want. You want games with incredible pressure and context. You don’t want games to be meaningless, playing for balls lottery. You want to have that kind of context. And you want to see what this competition can do for you.
Teams will find out whether they want to know or not.
There are no less than 24 matchups the rest of the way that will pit the teams vying for places 5-8 on the West bracket against each other, meaning these nights could lead to a big swing in the ranking.
It could also depend on teams getting someone back in time to help the cause.
The Lakers could get LeBron James back at some point. The Warriors do not know when Andrew Wiggins – absent for personal reasons – might return, or if he will. The Mavericks are dealing with Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving, both injured. The Timberwolves will be hoping Karl-Anthony Towns is close to returning from a calf injury. The Pelicans stayed in the race despite the absence of Zion Williamson, who they’re probably used to by now.
Buckle up. Denver might not get caught at the top of the West. The trio of Milwaukee, Boston and Philadelphia will finish 1-2-3 in the East in some order. But everything else is pretty much up for grabs, especially in the very congested West.
“It’s funny what a few wins can do right now,” Clippers coach Tyronn Lue said.
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