NBA Playoff Picture Starting To Develop

Storyline: Games this week offer an exciting finish to another great regular season of NBA basketball! It will take us one step closer to Thursday, June 1st, and Game 1 of the Finals.

The NBA Playoffs picture is starting to fall into place.

The Western Conference is all but decided. Golden State (1) will take on Portland (8); San Antonio (2) will tackle Memphis (7); Houston (3) will face off against Oklahoma City (6); and Utah will face LA with home court yet to be determined.

This week the Jazz is staring down at the Warriors and Spurs in an attempt to lock-up home court. The Clippers, on the other hand, will see the Rockets and the Kings–a more winnable final week. With the tie-breaker in hand, the Clippers will most likely take the 4-seed.

ESPN

The situation is entirely different In the East. The only team locked-in-place is the Wizards with the 4-seed.

With Miami and Toronto remaining the Cavs look to rebound from a terrible loss against the Hawks and lock-up the top seed in the East. It has been a terrible final six weeks for the Cavs.

The Celtics, on the other hand, have the Nets and the Bucks. Cleveland holds that tie-breaker.

In the 3rd slot, Toronto needs to win out–and have both the Cavs and Celtics lose their final two games–to take the top seed. They seem to be pretty locked in there.

In the bottom half of the playoff picture, Atlanta is the 5-seed with Milwaukee a game behind the Hawks. Both teams have clinched a playoff berth. As it stands today (April 10), the Pacers are 7th with Chicago and Miami both a game behind Indiana. All other teams have been eliminated.

Chicago holds the tiebreaker over Miami. The Pacers have the 76ers and the Hawks this week, which should be good enough to hold onto that 7th spot. The Bulls have two teams from the basement of the league–Orlando and Brooklyn–coming to town. They should also hold onto the 8th spot.

Now, with all that being said, one of these final two games could change everything in the East. Although they hold the 7-seed now, if Indiana drops a game on the other two teams, they will be eliminated in a tie-breaker…if the tie breaker includes Indiana, Miami, and Chicago. But if Atlanta falls into that tiebreaker, then all of a sudden Chicago is the team sliding to the bottom.

So much can happen in the East even though there is only three days left of regular season basketball.

If the Playoffs started today, the Eastern Conference match-up would look like this:

1. Cleveland vs 8. Chicago
4. Washington vs 5. Atlanta
3. Toronto vs 6. Milwaukee
2. Boston vs 7. Indiana

The big games I will be tuning in for this week are

Cavs-Heat Monday night at 7:30

Clippers-Rockets at 10:30, and

Pacers-Hawks Wednesday at 8.

Depending on how Monday goes, Cavs-Raptors Wednesday night at 8 p.m. would be a good watch.

So this week should be another exciting finish to another great regular season of basketball! It will take us one step closer to Thursday, June 1st, and Game 1 of the Finals.