Playoff seeds in limbo as season winds down
NEW YORK — Friday’s matchup between the Knicks and San Antonio Spurs marked game No. 73 of the regular season.
There are officially 10 games left on the schedule until the playoffs begin on April 20.
And so far, the Knicks — shorthanded and all — have stayed out of the Play-in Tournament in position to secure homecourt advantage as a top-four seed in the Eastern Conference.
As of tipoff in San Antonio, heavily favored against a lottery-bound Spurs team, the Knicks owned sole possession of the East’s No. 3 seed. They are a half-game ahead of the fourth-place Cleveland Cavaliers, two games ahead of the No. 5 Orlando Magic and a full four games in front of No. 6 Indiana.
The Knicks were also just a game-and-a-half behind the second-place Milwaukee Bucks before they tipped off against the Spurs on Friday.
And with 10 games left on the schedule, both a push to second place and a plummet to sixth are on the table for a team holding the fort together while its stars remain on the mend.
While paint-protecting big man Mitchell Robinson returned to the rotation in a bench capacity in Tuesday’s victory over the Toronto Raptors, injury timelines for both OG Anunoby (right elbow injury maintenance) and Julius Randle (dislocated right shoulder) remain unclear.
Which gives a shorthanded Knicks team a tall order down the home stretch of the regular season, where every win or loss has playoff implications.
Not to mention it would behoove the Knicks to finish second or third and not fall to fourth in the East, as the winner of the first-round matchup between the fourth and fifth seed advances to face the top-ranked Boston Celtics in the second round.