How tight is the Western Conference playoff race? The New Orleans Pelicans are still floating between home-court advantage and not making the post season at all.
As of Monday morning, only three wins separate the Western Conference’s third seed and the 9th ranked Denver Nuggets. With only two games left to play for each team, it's still likely that the rankings will look very different at the end of the season.
For our sake, let’s just look at the New Orleans Pelicans, currently 5th in the Western Conference.
On Monday night, the Pelicans play the recently eliminated Los Angeles Clippers on the road. Wednesday, they close out the season at home against the San Antonio Spurs.
If the Pelicans win one of those, they’re in. If they win both of those, they could move all the way up to the 4th seed, but they’ll need some help.
BEST CASE SCENARIO
The Pelicans beat the Clippers and Spurs AND the Jazz lose both their remaining games.
This is the only way the Pelicans can secure home court for the first round. It's not too much of a stretch either. The Jazz’s remaining games are against the Golden State Warriors and the Portland Trail Blazers, both strong Western Conference teams.
If the Jazz and Pelicans end the season in a tie, Utah holds the tie breaker over New Orleans, giving them the edge.
WORST CASE SCENARIO
Oh no. What if the Pelicans lose both of their remaining games?
The Pelicans could still make the playoffs even if they don’t win another game this season.
The only way they can be knocked out of contention is if the Denver Nuggets win their next two games and the Minnesota Timberwolves win one of them.
There’s an interesting twist to this: The Nuggets and the Timberwolves play each other to end the season.
So the ONLY WAY the Pelicans don’t make the playoffs is if the Nuggets beat both the Timberwolves and the Trailblazers. The Timberwolves would also have to beat the Grizzlies.
Again, this is only if the Pelicans lose the rest of their games.
EVERYTHING IN BETWEEN
The most likely scenario is that the Pelicans will fall somewhere in between both those scenarios through one of several combinations of winning and losing from the seven teams still in the mix.
Here are the current Western Conference standings.
1. Rockets – 64-16
2. Warrios – 58-23
3. Trail Blazers – 48-32
4. Jazz – 47-33
5. Pelicans – 46-34
6. Thunder – 46-34
7. Spurs – 46-34
8. Timberwolves – 45-35
9. Nuggets – 45-35