11 days, 7 spots, 5 teams

A wild playoff race leaves little room for error with seven teams that are separated by three games as they pursue the Western Conference’s final five playoff spots.

Every day can bring a significant shift, starting Sunday with four 33loss teams squaring off in two games — Utah (43-33) at Minnesota (44-33) and Oklahoma City (44-33) at New Orleans (43-33).

San Antonio (44-32) is in the mix after recovering from a 3-11 tailspin that put the Spurs’ 20-year streak of playoff appearances in peril. Minnesota is treading water at 8-7 since a knee injury sidelined Jimmy Butler, who began contact drills last week. With Rudy Gobert back, a 21-2 stretch vaulted Utah into the jumble. Other than last week’s three-game slide, Anthony Davis has put New Orleans in the hunt despite DeMarcus Cousins’ absence.

That has made it difficult for the Clippers (41-35) or Denver (41-35) to catch any team, and the remaining schedule will not help.

The Clippers and Nuggets face more .500-plus opponents (five each among their six remaining games) than any of the teams they are trying to jump but also have more home games (Clippers five, Nuggets four) than any of them.

The Clippers do not own a headto-head tiebreaker but could tie the season series with New Orleans at home April 9 and have a better conference record for the second tiebreaker. Denver went 3-1 against Oklahoma City and 2-1 against New Orleans and holds the division record tiebreaker against Utah after their series split.