Playoff matchups we’d like to see and tiebreakers explained ... Raptors coaches in demand ... NBA’s dogs fighting for lottery balls ... Noel goes out on high note with Mavs
The long NBA regular season has one week remaining and things are going right down to the wire as far as playoff positioning is concerned.
Houston has already sewn up the top overall record and home court advantage throughout the post-season, with Golden State safely in second. Toronto and Boston are still in a dogfight for first in the Eastern Conference, though, with Wednesday’s game shaping up to be one of the bigger regular season tilts in Raptors history.
Cleveland (three straight wins and a game ahead of their closest two pursuers entering play on Tuesday), Philadelphia (10 straight) and Indiana (five in a row) are in a fierce fight for the third seed. The Pacers have the tiebreaker over both.
Washington, Miami and Milwaukee will finish 6-8 in some order.
If Washington, Milwaukee and Miami end up with the same records, how will seeding work? Glad you asked.
Washington had one more win entering play Tuesday, but Miami is still in good shape. If all three end up, say, 44-38, the Southeast Division winner (either Miami or Washington) would get the sixth seed, Miami owns the tiebreaker with Milwaukee so they’d be seventh (if the Wizards take the division, sixth if they take it), and Miami is one game better against the Southeast than Washington, a crucial tiebreaker if only Washington and Miami end up with the same record. Clear as mud? Milwaukee blowing an 11-point lead and losing in overtime against Denver recently could loom large here, but so could Washington not showing up against Atlanta a day after John Wall’s inspiring return to the lineup.
In every scenario, Toronto will have a rematch with a recent playoff foe, Milwaukee or Miami, who they beat in the first round last year and in the second round the year prior, or Washington, who swept Toronto in the first round before the Raptors really stabilized.
A Cleveland-Miami “LeBron Bowl” would be fascinating, while a battle of less than 100 per cent superstar point guards (Kyrie
Irving and Wall) featuring Boston and Washington could also be interesting.
Would anybody pick Indiana, the East’s biggest surprise this season, over Philadelphia, providing Joel Embiid is back in the lineup as expected?
Meanwhile, Portland has a firm grip on the third seed in the West, but only three games separated No. 4 San Antonio and No. 9 Denver heading into Tuesday’s slate of games. Minnesota has free-fallen without Jimmy Butler (who says he is close to a return), Utah has surged, Anthony Davis has kept New Orleans alive and San Antonio has brought it defensively, even without Kawhi Leonard.
Would the Rockets double or triple-team Davis and force somebody else to challenge them in Round 1 if Houston and New Orleans meet (it’s too bad DeMarcus
Cousins got hurt, because that would have been a fascinating contrasts of styles)?
Stephen Curry’s injury and Utah’s stellar recent play could make a Golden State-Jazz matchup far more competitive than the Warriors would like and, if Portland drew Utah, they probably wouldn’t be heavy favourites at all.
OKC and San Antonio are both wildcards, making a potential 4-5 battle a pretty juicy proposition (especially if Leonard rejoins his teammates).
At the very least, having so many scenarios up in the air should make the final week entertaining.
PICK INTRIGUE
The other interesting race as the season winds down is for lottery balls.
Phoenix, Memphis, Atlanta and Orlando are in a spirited “battle” for the best odds.
Brooklyn entered Tuesday tied for the sixth-worst record, but their pick is going to Cleveland thanks to this past summer’s Irving trade.
The Lakers (10th-worst record) will send their first rounder to Philadelphia (or Boston if it ends up being 2-5, which is unlikely).
The poor Pistons will be sending the Clippers a late-lottery pick thanks to the Blake Griffin deal this space immediately panned and a move that looks even worse now with Detroit not making the playoffs.
RING, RING, RING
There could be as many as 11 head-coaching openings in the NBA this off-season, a result of a long, unusual period of stability that came to a close in 2017-18.
Yahoo Sports polled a large number of league executives about which assistant coaches are the top prospects to get head jobs. To nobody’s surprise, Nick
Nurse who helms Toronto’s offence, finished first with 16 votes. Raptors 905 bench boss Jerry Stackhouse, who led the team to a title in Year 1 and back to the conference final this year, got three votes, while Rex Kalamian, the top Raptors defensive assistant also got a vote. The Raptors will get calls. Portland’s David Vanterpool, who has worked with
Jay Triano with the Canadian national team, finished second with 13 votes.
AROUND THE RIM
The NBA’s eSports venture, the NBA 2K League, is going to be huge. Even if you are from a generation that doesn’t get the craze of watching others play video games, it’s hard not to recognize it is one of the fastest-growing phenomenons in sports and entertainment. Shaquille O’Neal will be the GM of the Sacramento team. The NBA announced this week that the games will be played on PCs with Dell and Intel serving as major partners. The Raptors team is called Raptors Uprising and the league draft goes Wednesday in New York City ... Nerlens Noel and Thabo Sefolosha have been suspended for violating the league’s drug policy. Noel’s partnership with the Dallas Mavericks has been nothing short of a disaster all-around, but at least ESPN’s Tim McMahon dropped a great zinger: “Nerlens Noel’s tenure with the Mavericks didn’t go as anyone hoped, but at least he went out on a high note.”