NBA: Predicting the seeds in the East and West come end of the regular season
By Ryan Rodriguez
With just over a week left in the NBA regular season, teams are jockeying for either playoff or draft position. Especially for teams preparing for the playoffs, these last eight days are jam-packed with games that will determine seeding and match-ups throughout the playoffs, something that is not lost on media and bloggers who know that match-ups make for a great series. Now, I don’t think NBA teams obsess over match-ups nearly as much as the general public, but I do think there is some thought that goes into who a team will be playing in the opening round of the playoffs and whether a team can manipulate their final week to get a more favorable match-up. With this in mind, I want to take a look at the current standings and which teams might be trying to position themselves for a different match-up, as well as what match-ups I am looking forward to.
East #1 seed
Paul George #24 of the Indiana Pacers dunks over LeBron James #6 of the Miami Heat during a game on March 26, 2014 at Bankers Life Fieldhouse in Indianapolis
After holding the top seed for seemingly the whole season, the Indiana Pacers are now in real danger of falling short of their stated goal of securing the number 1 seed. I think it is imperative for them to have home court in a potential game 7 against the Miami Heat, if they were to meet in the Conference Finals in order to win. People have been clamouring that the Heat or Pacers would want whatever seed would avoid the Bulls in a potential second round match-up (they are the 4th seed right now which means they would play the 1st seed if they won), but home court is much more precious to the floundering Pacers than a certain match-up right now. If they do get the 2 seed, be ready for an all NBA TV series when they play the Charlotte Bobcats (most likely) in the first round.
East #3 seed
As of today, the Toronto Raptors are the third seed by virtue of leading their division right now, while the Bulls, with the same record, are fourth. After last year’s first round match-up between the Bulls and Nets, I desperately want the Bulls to stay at the 4 seed so I can see these two teams go against each other again. There is narrative, history (both between teams and individuals), stylistic opposites (grit and grind, two-bigs tradition vs amorphous, position-less, new age basketball), and the draw of two big markets. The Raptors are a good story, let them take the three spot and give me the most tasty first round matchup the East can offer.
East #6 seed
The Bobcats, on the shoulders of Al Jefferson, are now just one game behind the Wizards for the sixth seed, threatening to redefine everything we thought we knew about them (mainly, they suck and should never be in the playoff right?). As cool as it has been to see Big Al dominate and carry a team, I sure hope the buck stops at the seven seed because I really want a Toronto-Washington and Indiana-Charlotte first round. The first matchup gives us a great battle of point guards in Kyle Lowry and John Wall, as well as an All Star (DeMar Derozan) for my boy Bradley Beal to test himself against. Right down the roster, they look eerily similar, and this test of similar styles will be fun to watch.
In the other match-up, it’s going to be defensive and that could definitely get boring, but a battle of Jefferson vs Roy Hibbert could definitely be all worth it. Personally, I think watching Michael Kidd-Gilchrist play defense on Paul George could be an interesting match-up as well, forcing George to tune up his offense for a potentially deep playoff run.
East #8 seed
Ha ha ha, just kidding, I’m not writing about this disgraceful spot.
West #2 seed
The Thunder are up 1 game right now, up 2 in the loss column, but they have one more game than the Clippers and they still have one head-to-head match-up. I see the Thunder ending the season ahead and that’s exactly what I want. Thunder-Mavs and Clippers-Warriors are the exact match-ups I want in the playoffs, which is what the current standings would give us. These teams are not fans of each other, and those are the exact types of things that make playoff series’. Even right now, I am just envisioning 6 or 7 reincarnations of the Clippers-Warriors Christmas night hate fest from earlier this year. And what can get better than a first round match-up of offensive savants in Dirk and KD matching wits, possession after possession.
West #5 seed
The Blazers currently have a 1.5 game lead on the Warriors right now, and normally that’s enough for me to say this seed is decided, but I have been lower on the Blazers than almost anyone else all year, so I can see the Warriors catching them, especially because they have one more match-up left. I know the Warriors seem semi-discombobulated right now, with all the coaching questions and David Lee now out indefinitely, but they have the best player and better defense between these two and that counts for quite a bit in NBA basketball.
Warriors fans, I assume, want to bump up to the 5 seed as well, since that means they could play a potentially hobbled Dwight Howard. I know I just gushed about a Clippers-Warriors match-up, but a Rockets-Warriors match-up is also very intriguing. Then again, Rockets-Blazers is pretty tantalizing as well, so I don’t think you can go wrong either way.
West #7/#8 seed
At this stage, I think the Mavs have secured themselves a playoff spot, regardless of seed but the Suns’ and Grizzlies’ future is still up in the air. Luckily for us, all these teams play each other once in the next week, meaning we get playoff basketball a week early. I want to see the Mavs and Suns make it, unless the Grizz can catapult up to the 7 seed. The 8 seed has us just staring at another blood bath at the hands of the Spurs, something that neither the Grizz or us fans really deserve.
The Mavericks, Suns and Grizzlies are battling it out for the final two seeds in the West
Besides this match-up, any combination of these three against the Thunder will be great for their own reasons. Likewise, an old guard matchup of Mavs-Spurs or an old guard/fresh blood match-up of Suns-Spurs would be great as well. Because I don’t see the Grizz jumping all the way to the 7 seed, and I feel horrible saying this since they play such a tough, tedious, but enjoyable, technically sound game – I want them to ultimately fall short in their quest to overcome Marc Gasol’s injury from earlier this season and make the playoffs.