The Oklahoma City Thunder and New Orleans Pelicans find themselves deadlocked, after more than five months of posturing, in a fight for the last playoff in the Western Confrerence with a week to go in the regular season.
Nothing gold can stay and the insane asylum that is the NBA’s Western Conference has just one more week of regular season brilliance to share with us. While teams like the Golden State Warriors have already locked up a playoff berth, others like the Memphis Grizzlies still look to secure their seeding and home court advantage. A little further down the ladder you’ll find the New Orleans Pelicans and the Oklahoma City Thunder, in that order.
After an exciting final few minutes in the fourth quarter of their huge win over the Warriors, the Pelicans took advantage of the San Antonio Spurs throttling the Thunder, and everyone else in their path, by hopping over Russell Westbrook and Co. for the eighth seed in the Western Conference playoff race.
The Pelicans made it to this point by going on a run, winners in five of their last six games, beating the Minnesota Timberwolves, Los Angeles Lakers and Sacramento Kings. This late surge has pushed them from outsiders to the team that controls their own destiny.
The Thunder once were the masters of their own fate, now they must win and hope for a little help. Previously the team most likely to sneak into the final playoff spot, the Thunder have dropped six of their last seven games. As if it doesn’t look bad enough, five of those six losses came against teams already locked into the playoffs in the West.
Oklahoma City has four remaining games:
Fri, Apr 10 vs. Sacramento
Sun, Apr 12 @ Indiana
Mon, Apr 13 vs. Portland
Wed, Apr 15 @ Minnesota
New Orleans has five remaining games:
Wed, Apr 8 @ Memphis
Fri, April 10 vs. Phoenix
Sun, Apr 12 @ Houston
Mon, Apr 13 @ Minnesota
Wed, Apr 15 vs. San Antonio
When things get as tight as they are in the playoff picture there are a whole series of tiebreaker scenarios. Fortunately, SB Nation took care of that for us. The TL;DR situation is that the Pelicans hold a head-to-head tiebreaker advantage over the Thunder. After the Tuesday night games, New Orleans has a half-game lead over the Thunder. Basically, the Pelicans have a throwaway game by having one more remaining game and one fewer loss.
New Oreleans will probably need that loss in hand as their remaining schedule appears to be considerably more difficult than the path the Thunder will take the rest of the way. The Pelicans will have very winnable games at home against the Suns and at the Timberwolves, but have road games at Memphis before, Houston between, and home against the Spurs to finish the season. The advantage in the loss column means that the Pelicans can probably go 3-2 over their last five and still secure the final playoff spot, meaning a playoffs with The Brow, but without Russell Westbrook. Can we just move the ninth place team into the Eastern Conference playoffs?
Oklahoma City got run out of the building by the Spurs for not the first time this season. The Thunder need to win their games and hope the Pelicans slip or their season will be over one week from now. The upside for the Thunder is that they still have Russell Westbrook and should be competitive or favorites in all four of their remaining games. Oklahoma City has to feel like they can win at least three of the remaining four, if not win out completely. The trap game for the Thunder will be their home game against the Trailblazers on April 13. The Blazers will represent the toughest competition that the Thunder will face the rest of the way and while the Thunder will be playing that game at home, it is a back-to-back coming off a road game at Indiana. If there is a place that the Thunder could slip up, the second of a back-to-back against the team much higher in the Western Conference pecking order is where that is most likely to happen.
The edge has to go to the Pelicans, who can lose at least once, if not more, and still make the playoffs by virtue of their tiebreaker, but the Thunder need to have a win-or-go-home mentality the rest of the way. The schedule is definitely an advantage for the Thunder who only play one team who is clearly playing above their level, the Pelicans have to play some of the most dangerous and hungry teams in the playoff picture out West. A week from now there would be no surprising outcome, the West has been a wrecking ball of non-stop action and competition since game 1, no reason to assume that will slow down before game 82.
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