NBA Playoff Picture Update: Pelicans overtake Thunder out West, Heat stay alive in East
With just over one week remaining until the NBA postseason, every night can impact the standings. The NBA Playoff Picture Update keeps you up to date on all the most important news for all 16 berths and seeds.
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The Pell-I-can’t! When Golden State Warriors head coach Steve Kerr announced he wouldn’t be resting anybody for Tuesday’s matchup with the New Orleans Pelicans — a game that the Warriors didn’t need after having clinched home-court advantage, but that the Pelicans needed desperately in their pursuit of the West’s No. 8 seed — I wondered whether the Pelicans might wind up on the business end of the same sort of brutal, race-changing beat the Dubs handed the Phoenix Suns.
This time, though, the bounce went the other way:
After draining a tough 3-pointer with Quincy Pondexter draped all over him to tie the game at 100, Stephen Curry had a crack at another game-tying 3-ball to once again knot the contest at 103. As he pulled up, Pelicans forward Dante Cunningham elevated to contest; Curry jumped into him, but didn’t get a foul call.
As he came down, Curry released the ball, allowing it to bounce next to him before retrieving it with just over two seconds remaining and launching a 3. It rolled around the inside of the rim before bouncing out, giving the Pelicans a huge 103-100 win that moved them past the Oklahoma City Thunder into eighth place.
It was a fitting conclusion to a wild game that featured 11 ties, 16 lead changes and an array of dramatic moments in the closing minutes. There was Anthony Davis’ huge and-one finish through contact out of the pick-and-roll to give the Pelicans a four-point lead with 1:21 remaining:
… followed by Curry’s stepback bomb over Pondexter:
… followed by Tyreke Evans getting a benefit-of-the-doubt foul call against Andre Iguodala after dribbling the ball off his own leg and falling down, which led to a trip to the line for what would become the game-winning free throw:
… followed by Curry getting a great look at an 8-foot runner that would have given the Warriors the lead with 10 ticks left:
… followed by the potential game-tying miss. Which, by the way, was a pretty fortunate outcome for the officials, who would have had to explain to Monty Williams and a legion of angry Pelicans fans why Curry was allowed to attempt the shot in the first place.
Curry’s touch seemed to represent either A) a violation of the rule against a shooter being the first person to touch the ball if his shot fails to hit the backboard, the rim or another player, or B) a violation of the rule against a ball-handler being the first player to touch the ball after dropping the ball while in the air. Either way, as FanSided’s Jared Wade noted, something illegal happened on that play. Luckily, it didn’t wind up mattering.
Davis missed eight of his 10 shots in the first half, thanks in part to the interior defense of Andrew Bogut and Draymond Green. In the second half, though, he played like a superstar desperate to make his postseason debut. The 22-year-old marvel scored 23 points on 8-for-11 shooting after intermission, teaming up with center Omer Asik for score the first 10 points of the third quarter and chopping Golden State’s halftime lead down to two just three minutes into the second half.
Nearly the entire rest of the game was played within a two-possession margin — a hard-fought, nip-and-tuck finish that was anything but the “scrimmage” that the Warriors allegedly believed they were in for — with Davis’ shot-making and shot-deterring tilting both the game and the race for the eighth seed in New Orleans’ favor. The All-Star power forward finished with 29 points, 10 rebounds, four blocks, two assists and two steals in 40 minutes to lead the way.
Pondexter added 20 points on 6-for-7 shooting, including a perfect 4-for-4 mark from beyond the arc, along with tight perimeter defense. Evans chipped in 12 points, nine assists, six rebounds and four steals for the Pelicans, who now sit a half-game up on the Thunder … who didn’t have such a great night.
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Second verse, same as the first: Just two weeks removed from taking a 39-point beating at the hands of the Spurs, Scott Brooks’ squad once again fell victim to a San Antonio pasting on Wednesday.
The Spurs walloped the Thunder, 113-88, to run their winning streak to eight and improve to 18-3 over their last 21 games. This game was over nearly as soon as it got started, as the Spurs clamped down to hold the Thunder to a season-low 10 points in the first quarter on 4-for-21 shooting, with San Antonio scoring nine points off six Oklahoma City turnovers to take a 19-point lead after 12 minutes.
Your emblematic early-game possession: Kawhi Leonard continuing his larcenous ways by victimizing Kyle Singler to create a runout dunk.
Leonard maintained his brilliant recent form, scoring 23 points in the first half alone to stake San Antonio to a 22-point halftime lead. Oklahoma City never even really flirted with a run to get back into things; as a result, Leonard didn’t play after the 7:40 mark of the third. He finished with 26 points — matching his regular-season career-high, which he’s now hit four times this season, and in two straight games — to go with three steals, two rebounds and two assists in just 24 minutes.
Five other Spurs scored in double figures, led by 12 points, nine rebounds and four blocks from Tim Duncan. The future Hall of Famer also added three assists, including this honey of an alley-oop feed to Leonard:
San Antonio led by as many as 34 points against a Thunder team that, frankly, looks absolutely spent after fighting so hard to maintain playoff positioning without injured stars Kevin Durant and Serge Ibaka.
With Russell Westbrook continuing to seem somewhat the worse for wear (17 points on 7-for-16 shooting with six steals, two assists and four turnovers) after spending February and March playing the role of Superman, Oklahoma City just looked completely outclassed by the in-form Spurs, leading coach Gregg Popovich to express some postgame sympathy for the Thunder, according to Royce Young of ESPN.com:
“No matter how you slice it, it is just not a fair fight,” Spurs coach Gregg Popovich said. “Nobody is going to give back the win. We are going to take the win and I thought we played well, but you just still feel badly when you see Kevin in that chair out there and the other guys are hurt. It is just not a fair fight.” […]
“You’ve got to feel badly for these guys,” Popovich said. “You feel sorry for them, but you’re proud of them at the same time because they play the right way and they do everything they can to win. They don’t cry. They just go play.”
That, unfortunately, hasn’t been enough of late. Oklahoma City’s now lost four straight and six of seven to fall to ninth place in the West, a half-game behind the Pelicans. And with New Orleans holding the head-to-head tiebreaker over the Thunder thanks to a bonkers game-winning 3 by Davis two months ago, Oklahoma City no longer controls its own destiny, no matter what Westbrook and Dion Waiters seem to think. If the Thunder don’t finish one game up on New Orleans, they’ll be watching the playoffs for the first time 2009.
All’s not lost just yet. The Thunder finish the season with matchups against the playing-out-the-string Sacramento Kings, the not-quite-world-beating (but recently reinvigorated) Indiana Pacers, a Portland Trail Blazers squad likely already resigned to opening the playoffs on the road and a Minnesota Timberwolves team with little incentive to win again this season. The Pelicans, on the other hand, still have three games left against Western playoff squads, including a last-day-of-the-season date with these Spurs.
The door’s still open. But for the Thunder to walk through it and into the playoffs, they’ll have to start playing like they belong there.
“Nobody going to come through the door and save us,” said Waiters after the game, according to Berry Tramel of The Oklahoman.
At this stage, though, it’s not clear whether the Thunder can save themselves.
Survive and … well, just survive: Goran Dragic scored 11 of his team-high 28 points in the fourth quarter, pairing slithery drives to the cup with deadeye shooting to push the Miami Heat to a 105-100 win over the Charlotte Hornets. The win lifts Miami back into ninth place in the Eastern Conference, a half-game behind the eighth-seeded Boston Celtics and a half-game ahead of the Pacers. The loss drops 11th-place Charlotte a full two games back of Boston with just five games left on its schedule.
Despite the significant injury woes on both sides — the Heat have lost Chris Bosh, Josh McRoberts and first-round pick Shabazz Napier for the season, and the Hornets were without injured starters Al Jefferson, Michael Kidd-Gilchrist and Cody Zeller (to say nothing of the ailing guys who did suit up) — this was a tight, competitive, fun game between two teams that clearly understood the dire impact a loss could have on their playoff hopes.
Playing with a broken nose and without a mask, Charlotte center Bismack Biyombo turned in 12 points, 12 rebounds, four blocks, two steals and two assists in 41 minutes. Luol Deng worked through a sprained left knee, gutting out a 21-point, six-rebound performance that included a dagger jumper to put Miami up six with 38 seconds remaining. Hassan Whiteside battled foul trouble and aggravated stitches in his lacerated right hand to kick in 12 points and eight rebounds. Chris “Birdman” Andersen scored six points and blocked three shots on a sprained right foot on which he could barely put pressure over the weekend.
It was a contest marked by desperation, one in which the Heat took control with a go-for-broke 21-2 mid-third-quarter run sparked in part by the hustle and hard work of Udonis Haslem. The longtime Miami tone-setter finished with eight points, eight rebounds and three assists in 27 1/2 minutes.
“U.D. made the Game 7-type plays in the second half, the defensive-type tough plays,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said after the game, according to Joe Goodman of the Miami Herald. “When the game becomes fierce like that, the guy you want in your corner is U.D.”
Despite the best efforts of Gerald Henderson, Kemba Walker and Mo Williams, the Hornets couldn’t hold up when it counted. Charlotte shot just 35.7 percent from the field in the second half and repeatedly failed to impede Dragic’s progress to the basket, a combination that made for both a frustrating finish to this particular game and an apt summation of the disappointing season Steve Clifford’s club has mounted in the first year of the new Hornets’ era.
Total eclipse: Even without injured All-Star power forward Paul Millsap, the Atlanta Hawks crushed the Phoenix Suns, 96-69, to earn their franchise-record-setting 58th win of the season. Jeff Teague, DeMarre Carroll and Millsap replacement Mike Muscala each scored 16 for the Hawks, who cruised despite missing 21 of their 25 3-point attempts by choking out Phoenix’s offense, holding the Suns to 31.3 percent shooting from the field.
Suns guard Eric Bledsoe got ejected midway through the third quarter for woofing to the referees after a foul call that went his way:
… so, y’know, par for the course for this extraordinarily odd Suns season.
Phoenix has now lost six of seven to fall to .500 at 39-39, and now sits 3 1/2 games behind the eighth-place Pelicans with four games remaining. The Suns aren’t officially done, but they can certainly see “done” without squinting.
Totally Clips: It was quite a bit closer than Sunday’s blowout, but the result was the same. The Los Angeles Clippers beat the Los Angeles Lakers again, this time by a score of 105-100, to complete a 4-0 season sweep of their punchless rivals. Blake Griffin and J.J. Redick each scored 27 points, Chris Paul added 19 points, 10 assists and five rebounds, and DeAndre Jordan hauled in 17 rebounds and blocked three shots for the Clippers, who have won four straight to improve to 53-26.
L.A. still sits in fifth place in the West, but now has a two-game edge over the fourth-seeded Portland Trail Blazers (50-27). While the Blazers are guaranteed a top-four seed by virtue of winning the Northwest Division, if they end the season witha a worse record than whichever team finishes fifth, Portland will not have home-court advantage in its opening-round series.
Doc Rivers and company probably have their sights set on something loftier than just starting a 4-vs.-5 matchup at Staples, though; the Clips now sit mere percentage points behind the 52-25 Memphis Grizzlies for the No. 3 seed and only one game south of the Houston Rockets for the West’s No. 2 spot.
Perhaps the biggest news from the Clippers’ win: Jamal Crawford returned after missing 17 games with a bruised right calf. He didn’t look quite like the fire of old — four points on 2-for-7 shooting, one assist — but he logged 19 minutes without incident, a heartening sign for a Clipper club that desperately needs an infusion of, well, anything positive from its bench if it hopes to make a deep playoff run.
Wednesday’s Most Important Games
Rockets at Spurs, 8:30 p.m. ET: The scorching Spurs enter Wednesday in sixth place in the West, but a ninth straight win would draw them within a half-game of the second-place Rockets. Plus, we get to see Kawhi Leonard vs. James Harden. There’s not a whole lot the NBA can offer right now that feels more important than that.
Pelicans at Grizzlies, 8 p.m. ET: As invigorating as Tuesday’s win was, a hangover loss in Memphis would drop the Pelicans’ record right back to level with Oklahoma City. The formerly ferocious Grizz have seemed tame for most of the past couple of months and have already dropped two of three to the Pelicans this season. With the Rockets facing the San Antonio buzzsaw and New Orleans on the second night of a back-to-back, though, Memphis has a golden opportunity to draw even with Houston in the race for second.
Suns at Mavericks, 9:30 p.m. ET: After clinching its playoff berth by virtue of Oklahoma City’s loss, Dallas can put the Suns — now just one more loss or one more Pelicans/Thunder win away from elimination — out of their misery. Or perhaps Jeff Hornacek’s club bounces back while the Grizzlies slow New Orleans, keeping this weirdo Suns season alive. Either way, really.
Hawks at Nets, 7:30 p.m. ET, and Cavaliers at Bucks, 8 p.m. ET: The combination of a Nets loss and a Bucks would clinch Milwaukee’s playoff berth. A Bucks loss and a Nets win would put surging Brooklyn just one game behind Milwaukee for the No. 6 seed. A pair of wins or losses would keep this nothing’s-clinched-yet dance at the bottom of the East going for one more dreary day.
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Dan Devine is an editor for Ball Don’t Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter!
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