The Race for Eighth

So, the Mavericks lost last night. To Oklahoma City of all teams. The fact that they almost lost at home, to a Durant-less OKC team three nights ago, should have at least made the Mavericks take notice of the Thunder, if not come straight out ready to make a statement. Instead, they proceed to suck it up on the road in OKC and almost get blown out. They were actually down 20 going into the 4th before they tightened their D up to make it a semi-close game, eventually losing by 9, 96-87. Really, that's just pathetic. And you can't even complain about matchup problems like their old Warriors series. Both Durant AND Green sat out in that Maverick loss. One of the WORST and YOUNGEST teams in the league spot you their two best players, and you almost lose by double digits, in the thick of the playoff race? WTF? Seriously, how are the Suns behind them in the standings?

Speaking of standings... in my opinion there's really five teams battling for the last 4 spots in the West, with one team left out of the playoff party. I don't think the Jazz will miss. They're surging hard right now, going 10-1 in February, and finally have their whole team back. Boozer and AK just returned from surgeries and will be playing back into shape shortly, meanwhile Deron has shook off his early season rust (also from surgery) and have been putting up All-Star type numbers for the past 6 weeks or so. And with their earlier injuries, former role players Brewer and Millsap have really come into their own this season. Brewer's ppg has been climbing all season, from 14 ppg in January to 17 ppg in February, and post all-star break, he's been averaging close to 20/5. Meanwhile Millsap has been a fantastic fill-in for Boozer and has shown that with starter minutes, he's a 16/10, 1 stl, 1 blk kinda guy. With that kind of production from their "role players" and their notoriously tough home court, the Jazz are a lock for the playoffs. Ff anything, the Jazz just might grab the 3rd seed.

No, in my opinion, the 5 teams fighting for the 4 spots are Houston, Dallas, New Orleans, Phoenix, and Portland. Currently, Phoenix is the one in 9th and 1 game back from Dallas. So I crunch some numbers, so here's how the rest of their schedules match up.

Team	Games	Home	Away	Avg Opp.	Vs. Bigs	Vs. Bigs (a)
HOU	22	11	11	0.539	14	8
DAL	22	11	11	0.528	12	6
NO	23	11	12	0.472	10	3
PHX	23	11	12	0.488	12	7
POR	23	11	12	0.497	10	4

The above chart shows how many games each team has left as of tonight (March 3) and how many are home or away games. It also shows the average winning % of their opponents, how many against the big 12 teams in the league (Western top 9 + BOS, CLE, ORL), and how many of those big matchups are away.

From that list, Houston seems to have the toughest schedule. Over half of their remaining games are against powerhouse teams and over half of those are on the road. PHX and DAL looks like a close tie with both having 12 matchups with the Biggies. PHX has 1 more overal road game (11 vs. 12) and one more overall road biggie (6 vs. 7), but their average opponent winning percentage is much lower (.488 vs .528). Meanwhile, another "lock" looks to be New Orleans who has the easiest schedule. Their opponent winning % is the lowest at .472 and only 3 of their 10 big matchups are on the road.

Looking at this and after last night's embarassingly loss to the Thunder... I'm willing to bet that the Mavs are the ones that will miss the playoffs. 'Course that's not always too bad. At least they'll get a swing at the lotto. And whoever gets the 7th or 8th seeds probably won't last too long against LA or San Antonio.

By the way, if you want to play around with the numbers yourself. My spreadsheet is available here.

Edit: Just realized I forgot to explain why I think Houston makes it despite having the hardest schedule. First of all, they only have 22 losses, so they're actually 4 games ahead of the Suns (26L) after our lost tonight against the Magic and 2 games ahead of the Mavericks (24L). That's a HUGE difference with so few games remaining. Also, I know McGrady is out for the season with microfracture surgery, but I think they're actually better without him. Since T-Mac has been out, the Rockets have gone 7-1. Yeah, 6 of those victories were at home, but they still include quality wins against the likes of CLE, POR, and DAL. The defensive advantages of having Battier and Artest out there at the same time have been tremendous. For a more in depth look at their D, check out this excellent article by ESPN, breaking down how the Rockets decided to cover and contain Lebron James, holding him to just 7-21 shooting and a career low 0 assist.