Well let me start this off by saying Kevin Love and his Timberwolves are mathematically able to make the playoffs, but they need a miracle. This miracle includes one of the five strong Western Conference teams at least six games ahead of them in the standings to lose out while they win out which I’m willing to bet won’t happen.
Lets take a look at the Western Conference standings as of now
Via: CBS
As of today the Portland TrailBlazers sit at the 5th spot, and with this current three game winning streak they’re on has probably cemented their spot somewhere between 5th-8th. Portland looks to extend it’s win streak to four against the Lakers on Tuesday.
For some odd reason Golden State has stayed under the radar with all this Western Conference playoff talk even though they could just as easily drop out the race from the 6th spot. However Steph Curry who’s been averaging over 29ppg through his last six will definitely will his team to one of these spots. The Warriors are looking to rebound Tuesday against the Dallas Mavericks from a unsuspected 89-84 loss to the Knicks. Bogut is also expected to miss 7 days with that groin inury so that’s something to keep an eye on moving forward.
The Phoenix Suns who are the biggest surprise of the Western Conference this season currently sits at the 7th spot. This is the team everybody has had projected to fall out of the playoff race but i’d have to disagree. Even with six of their last eight games being against Western Conference playoff teams, three of them are against Memphis, Dallas, and Portland. If they can squeeze two wins out of those three games then maybe 50 wins might not be needed to at least secure the 7th seed. This team has the most control over their destiny than any other of the 6th-9th seeds.
Dallas who has the same record as Phoenix sit at the 8th spot while Memphis with one less win sits at 9th. Dallas has a pretty favorable schedule down the stretch but their last game of the season is against Memphis so that’s why I believe one of these two teams will be the odd man out come April 16th. Memphis sadly shouldn’t even be in this predicament. They’re fresh off a trip to the Western Conference Finals last year and even with them losing their coach still kept the same core group of players. Memphis got hit with the injury bug pretty hard earlier in the year and at one point seemed like they’re chances of making the playoffs we as good as Utah’s in January. Thankfully Gasol, Conley, and Randolph eventually got healthy and has put up a great fight to get them back into this position, so it would be pretty hard to bet against them.
I’ll be posting a updated playoff race next week but as of now I got the standings staying consistent until the end of season.
(1) Spurs vs (8) Dallas
(2) Thunder vs (7) Suns
(3) Clippers vs (6) Warriors
(4) Rockets vs (5) Portland
