NBA Playoff Picture: Dallas opens up options, pushes Houston back
With just a week left in the NBA’s regular season, several games per night make a big difference in the fights for playoff berths and seeding. This post catches you up on everything that matters to these races.
GAMES THAT MATTERED A LOT
Texas justice: Wednesday’s tilt between the Houston Rockets and Dallas Mavericks carried big implications for the West playoff race. A win would lift the Rockets over the Mavericks and Jazz into the conference’s No. 7 seed, while a Dallas victory would create some separation in the same spot and put the Rockets in a tough spot for their final four games of the season. Either result would have a major impact on not just the playoff race, but two veteran squads’ abilities to enter the offseason with some degree of positive momentum.
It was only fitting that the game came down to the wire. Up 52-44 at the half after a dominant second quarter, the Mavericks allowed the Rockets to control the third and entered the fourth quarter facing a 71-70 deficit. It stayed very close throughout, with neither team leading by more than a possession for the final nine minutes.
A Dirk Nowitzki miss with 29 seconds remaining gave the Rockets a chance to take the lead down 86-85. However, Wesley Matthews denied James Harden the ball for the majority of the shot clock and helped funnel the Houston star into a clogged lane, resulting in this Dirk steal with five seconds remaining:
Devin Harris made two free throws at the other end to push the lead to three, after which Raymond Felton fouled Jason Terry to guard against a game-tying three. Terry made the first and intentionally missed the second, but Matthews batted away the rebound (with a fair amount of contact) to finish off the 88-86 win.
This game did not look like a pairing of two top-10 offenses and two bottom-half defenses. Both teams hovered around 30 percent from beyond the arc, and Harden needed 22 shots from his team-high 26 points. The Mavericks were similarly offense-challenged, which meant that J.J. Barea’s game-high 27 on 10-of-16 FG loomed especially large:
Dallas didn’t require this win to stay in the playoffs, but it was a massive victory with their four remaining games coming against teams currently in the postseason (two, the Grizzlies and Jazz, still need to lock down their spots). The 40-38 Mavs now lead the Jazz by a game for the No. 7 seed, sit two games ahead of the Rockets, and could feasibly close a two-game gap on the Grizzlies or Blazers to avoid the Warriors and Spurs in the first round. Simply put, the Mavericks kept many options open by pulling out this victory. That’s a meaningful step given that most teams in playoff races have to take whatever they can get.
The Rockets now find themselves in that desperate position, although a cupcake schedule to close the season keeps them in decent shape. Houston might need to win all four of their remaining games to catch any team ahead of them, but they should be able to beat the Suns, Lakers, Wolves, and Kings. They’d also be likely to hold the in-conference record tiebreaker over the Jazz in the event of a tie.
The biggest problem for the Rockets is that losing one of those games would be entirely in keeping with a season that began with championship aspirations. Perhaps they have saved their greatest disappointment for last.
No sleep ’til Portland: It sure helps when the opponent rests its three best players and another starter. One day after locking up the West’s No. 3 seed, Billy Donovan and the Thunder rested Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook, Serge Ibaka, and Anthony Roberson. Enes Kanter helped keep the Thunder in it with an absurd 33-point, 20-rebound line, but Portland shot 51.2 percent from the field and 15-of-33 from deep despite a 2-of-13 night for Damian Lillard. (On second thought, maybe that efficiency and Kanter’s 36 minutes of playing time are related.)
The 120-115 win clinches a Blazers playoff berth that no one predicted when they lost four high-quality starters last summer. No one except their star, at least.
The Thunder and Blazers would currently be matched up in the first round, but it looks very unlikely that it will stay that way. Portland is in a virtual tie with Memphis for the No. 5 seed but technically sits in sixth because they’ve split two extra games. They have just two games left, both at home against teams already eliminated from the playoffs. The Wolves and Nuggets may relish playing spoiler, but the Blazers will be favored in both games. Portland will also hold the tiebreaker over Memphis regardless.
OKC had good reason to rest their key players against any opponent. But this result sure won’t hurt them in the long run, because the Blazers figure to be a trendy upset pick against either the Thunder or Clippers.
GAMES THAT MATTERED PLENTY
Flirting with Pis-aster: The Detroit Pistons traveled to Orlando for a should-win game with the Magic. It should therefore come as no surprise that they trailed by four after three quarters. That’s not a baffling result — the Magic have plenty of good players and are keeping most of the rotation active — but it would not be great for the Pistons to allow the Chicago Bulls another day of relevance after getting saved some help from the victorious Memphis Grizzlies on Wednesday.
The good news is that the Pistons scored 35 points in the fourth to lock down a 108-104 win. Detroit closed it out with a late 12-2 run to avoid disaster.
It seems like only a matter of time until the Pistons clinch a playoff berth — they’re 2 1/2 up on the Bulls with three to play and will be favored against the technically-alive Wizards on Friday. They’d do will to win that one, though, because season-closing games against the Heat and Cavs could prove tricky.
No LeBron means no loss: The Indiana Pacers were fortunate enough to draw the Cleveland Cavaliers on the second night of a back-to-back, which meant that LeBron James sat out for rest. The Pacers pounced, building a 14-point lead through three quarters on their way to a 123-109 victory. Paul George scored 29 on 11-of-19, but it was a full-team performance. Indiana made 56.3 percent of its field goals, including more than half of its threes (16-of-31).
The win did not increase the Pacers’ half-game lead over the Pistons for No. 7, but they are now three games up on the No. 9 Chicago Bulls and should be able to sew up a playoff berth in a matter of days. A win at the Raptors on Friday would help considerably.
Toronto figures to give maximum effort, though, because the Raptors are now three games back of the Cavaliers with two games in hand. Then again, if Toronto is able to pass Cleveland and Indiana ends up in seventh, the Pacers could come to regret this victory.
Winning Isaiah: The Boston Celtics very well could have lost this game despite the visiting New Orleans Pelicans starting Toney Douglas at point and playing Kendrick Perkins 19 minutes in 2016. The score was tied inside of 2:30 in the fourth quarter, a remarkable achievement for the Pelicans considering they had 22 turnovers overall.
But the Celtics have Isaiah Thomas, a legitimate difference maker who dominated with 34 points on only 19 field goal attempts:
It was the kind of performance that has lifted Thomas into stardom this season. And he knows it:
He was the biggest single reason for Boston’s 104-97 win, a big result that keeps the Celtics even with the Atlanta Hawks and a half-game ahead of the Heat for third place in the East. The Hawks hold the tiebreaker for now due to a 2-1 advantage in the season series, but they play once more on Saturday. For that matter, the Celtics can open up a sizable advantage on their rivals (or fall back to sixth) with a closing run against the Hawks, Hornets, and Heat. A much easier game comes first when they take on the eliminated Bucks at home on Friday.
Steady buzz: The Charlotte Hornets took care of business, winning the first, third, and fourth quarters by at least five points each to pull out a comfortable 111-97 win over the Knicks at Madison Square Garden. Kemba Walker was terrific, scoring a game-high 34 points on 11-of-18 FG and 7-of-10 3FG. Kurt Rambis played several veterans 35 minutes, which is a big part of why Knicks fans hate the idea that Phil Jackson wants to keep him on as permanent head coach.
The Hornets remain in the No. 6 seed after the win, but they’re now just a game behind the Hawks and Celtics in the crowded race for No. 3. Friday’s home tilt with the Nets should give them another chance to make up ground on at least one of their rivals, if not all three of them.
GAMES THAT MATTERED TO MATH
They took a vote and said no: The Washington Wizards remain in the hunt by math alone, but they at least managed to stay alive for another day by beating the Brooklyn Nets 121-103 at the Verizon Center. John Wall sat out his first game of the season due to a sore right knee, which should give you some idea of how seriously the Wizards believe in themselves, and fill-in starter Ramon Sessions did well in his place with 18 points and 13 assists. Bradley Beal led six players in double figures with 25 points on 11-of-15 from the field.
Washington needs a truckload of help to make it as the No. 8 seed with a 3 1/2-game deficit, but they can at least make it a race by topping the Pistons in Detroit on Friday. It’s arguably the easiest of the Pistons’ three remaining games, so the Wizards could at least construct a scenario in which they shock the world. Still, it’s unlikely that they will win out with two of their last three against playoff participants.
THURSDAY’S BIGGEST GAMES
Toronto Raptors at Atlanta Hawks, 8 p.m. ET: The Raptors are effectively in a spot where they need to win all their remaining games to catch the Cavaliers for the top seed, and even that might not be enough. This one should matter much more to the Hawks, who hold the No. 3 seed ahead of the Celtics by tiebreaker only. Atlanta hosts Boston on Saturday, too, so this win would put them in very strong shape ahead of that big contest.
Chicago Bulls at Miami Heat, 8 p.m. ET: A loss wouldn’t eliminate Chicago, but it would put them about as close as a team could get. Meanwhile, a Miami win and Atlanta loss would vault the Heat into the No. 3 seed a head of a busy four-game stretch to close the season.
San Antonio Spurs at Golden State Warriors, 10:30 p.m. ET: This game matters a hell of a lot more to the Warriors’ chase for 73 wins than the playoff picture, but a Golden State win would clinch homecourt advantage throughout the postseason. The Warriors would be in decent shape to do so even with a loss, but it’d sure make things a lot more interesting. It’s a must-watch game now that the Spurs plan to rest no one.
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Eric Freeman is a writer for Ball Don’t Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter!
