NBA: Predicting How The Western Conference Playoff Race Will Settle

With the NBA season heading into its stretch run, we analyze and try to predict how the Western Conference playoff picture will shake out

There’s a little more than 20 games left in the NBA’s regular season and the playoff race in both conferences is heating up. And now that the NBA Trade Deadline has past us by and with February Free Agency is heating up, we decided to try and handicap the remaining race to the postseason in the Western Conference.

You can read our Eastern Conference playoff predictions here.

In the Western Conference, I suppose it’s a forgone conclusion that the Golden State Warriors and the San Antonio Spurs will finish as the No. 1 and No. 2 seed, respectively, in the conference.

The Warriors, at 52-5, are four games ahead of the Spurs, 49-9, and don’t appear to be slowing down any time soon. San Antonio is seven games ahead of the Oklahoma City Thunder for the No. 2 seed. I think it’s safe to say that OKC, even with a healthy and hungry Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook, isn’t going to close the gap.

The real race in the Western Conference is in the other six spots, where the difference between the No. 5 seed and No. 9 seed is roughly five games.

Here’s how we see the Western Conference playoff picture shaping by the end of the season.

Next: Oklahoma City Thunder