In this week’s NBA Western Conference playoff race update, the LA Clippers and Denver Nuggets are still alive, while the Spurs move to 4th
With roughly two weeks until the NBA Playoffs begin, the Western Conference playoff race is as closest as its been all season long.
The Houston Rockets have clinched the top seed overall, and will have homecourt advantage through the postseason. The Golden State Warriors are pretty much locked into the second seed, and Kevin Durant just returned from injury.
The Portland Trail Blazers, barring an unforeseeable fall in the next two weeks, are likely locked into the third seed, and will host a first-round playoff series.
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Four through eight is where it gets interesting, and equally confusing. The San Antonio Spurs are currently the fourth seed, after beating the Oklahoma City Thunder Thursday night, but are only 3.5 games ahead of the 10th-seeeded Denver Nuggets.
Here are the rest of the Western Conference standings at the moment:
5. Oklahoma City Thunder (44-32)
6. New Orleans Pelicans (43-32)
7. Minnesota Timberwolves (43-33)
8. Utah Jazz (42-33)
9. LA Clippers (41-34)
10. Denver Nuggets (40-35)
Each team has roughly six, seven or eight games remaining, which makes the margin of error for each team extremely small.
A few things to keep in mind as the final two weeks of the NBA’s regular season gets underway:
- Denver has the third toughest schedule remaining in the NBA.
- Oklahoma City has the toughest.
- Minnesota has the sixth easiest.
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While the Nuggets and Clippers certainly still have a fighter’s chance at breaking into the West’s top 8, it’s going to take an extremely hot streak from either one of them for it to really come to fruition, especially with only a handful of games remaining.
Make no question, this playoff race is going to go down to the final week, perhaps even day, of the regular season.