Playoff push starts now with annual All-Star break ending
Golden State is still the favorite
Milwaukee, Toronto, Indiana, Boston, Philadelphia, Oklahoma City and Denver can all go ahead and cancel those mid-April vacation plans if they were foolish enough to have
For LeBron James and Dwyane Wade, some work awaits.
The All-Star break ends today, with about one-third of the season remaining for most clubs — and that means the playoff push now gets very seri a spot yet, though it would take a highly improbable series of events for the current top teams in the Eastern and Western Conferences to miss the postseason.
“Every year is a new challenge, different circumstances,” Golden State guard Stephen Curry said. “We are motivated. We understand what’s at stake.”
James has been to the NBA Finals in each of the last eight seasons, all out of the East — four with Miami, four with Cleveland. His Los Angeles Lakers currently are 10th in the West, three games behind the Clippers for
James has been to the playoffs in 13 consecutive seasons.
healthy,” Lakers president Magic Johnson said. “This has been one of the worst seasons I’ve ever been around Laker basketball as far as injuries are concerned. When we were healthy, we were in fourth place. Now we’re like 10th place. But when you’ve got LeBron James, anything is possible.”
The Miami Heat are part of a sixteam, three-spot race in the East, and Wade is hoping for one last postseason trip out of his 16th and said he thinks the way the Heat ended its pre-All-Star schedule — with a 2-3 road trip, though one where Miami could have won four of the games — is a good sign.
“It looks as though there’s something
Sacramento is right in the race to end the NBA’s longest current playoff drought; the Kings haven’t been to the postseason since 2006. Phoenix’s drought will hit nine straight seasons, but Orlando — currently holders of the third-longest drought at six seasons — hit the break with the East mix.
“I think we feel good about ourselves,” Magic All- Star forward Nikola Vucevic said. “I know we have
Here’s some other things to know - son:
LEBRON AND MICHAEL James is finally going to pass Michael Jordan.
In scoring, at least.
While the debate will rage forever about which player is better, James will soon have scored more points than Jordan. James is 211 points shy of passing Jordan (32,292) for the No. 4 spot in NBA history. When he gets there, each of the top four spots on that list will be occupied by current or former Los Angeles Lakers — No. 1 Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (38,392), No. 2 Karl Malone (36,928), No. 3 Kobe Bryant (33,643), and James.
SCORING AND PACE
Unless every team drastically changes the way it plays over the next two months — which won’t happen with its highest scoring average and fastest pace in 30 years.
Teams are averaging 110.7 points and 100 possessions per game this season. That’s the best scoring number since 1984-85 (110.8 points per game) and fastest pace since 1988-89 (100.6 possessions per game).
All 30 teams are on pace to average at least 100 points per game this season. The last time every team in the league averaged 100 was 1986-87, when the NBA had 23 franchises.
3’S ARE WILD
The NBA is on pace to see records in 3-pointers made and 3-pointers attempted. If that sounds like an annual statement, it is: This will be the seventh consecutive season where both marks fall.
Houston’s James Harden has a shot at the record for 3s in a single season. for a season already), putting him on pace for 401 if he plays in all 25 of the the mark with 402 makes from deep in 2015-16.
Harden seems like a lock for the 3s-taken record — Curry took 886 in his record-setting year, Harden has 733 now and is on pace for 1,072.