Spurs trying to track down the 2/3/4 seed

[Ditty]

Not necessarily, Pelicans can give the Warriors a good run for their money. Everyone is giving the Warriors a free pass until they play the Spurs (whenever that happens), I think they struggle mightily in a seven game series vs just about anyone in the West.

Well in a perfect world we would win tomorrow, and Thunder lose to the Timberwolves, and the Pelicans make the playoffs but I don't see the second scenario happening unfortunately . Hopefully Davis/Westbook, and Harden all play like MVP candidates in those series, and take GSW to seven games each, but at best think they will win two games at most in each series. Hopefully the best perimeter defenders will wear out Klay Thompson that he will revert back to his post season choking self if we play GSW in the conference finals.

[ace3g]

	W	L	PCT	GB	HOME	ROAD	DIV	CONF	PPG	OPP PPG	DIFF	STRK	L10
1zGolden State Warriors	66	15	.815	-	38-2	28-13	13-3	41-10	109.7	99.5	+10.1	W3	8-2
2xSan Antonio Spurs	55	26	.679	11	33-8	22-18	8-7	32-19	103.2	96.9	+6.3	W11	10-0
2xLos Angeles Clippers	56	26	.683	10.5	30-11	26-15	12-4	37-15	106.7	100.1	+6.6	W7	9-1
4yPortland Trail Blazers	51	30	.630	15	32-9	19-21	11-5	31-20	102.9	98.4	+4.5	L3	5-5
5xHouston Rockets	55	26	.679	11	29-11	26-15	8-8	32-19	103.8	100.6	+3.2	W2	7-3
6xMemphis Grizzlies	54	27	.667	12	30-10	24-17	9-7	35-17	98.4	95.2	+3.1	L2	4-6
7xDallas Mavericks	49	32	.605	17	26-14	23-18	7-9	28-23	105.1	102.4	+2.7	L1	5-5
8New Orleans Pelicans	44	37	.543	22	27-13	17-24	7-8	28-23	99.2	98.5	+0.7	W1	7-3
Oklahoma City Thunder	44	37	.543	22	29-12	15-25	9-6	24-27	103.5	101.6	+1.9	W1	3-7

[Malik Hairston]

2008 all over again

Lakers/Warriors as favorites with the MVP on the team

1 seed gets an easy bracket, vs a ty Jazz team in 2008 and flawed Blazers/Rockets team in the 2nd round in 2015, while the Spurs will go against the 3rd best team in the conference led by Chris Paul..

[Floyd Pacquiao]

2008 all over again

Lakers/Warriors as favorites with the MVP on the team

1 seed gets an easy bracket, vs a ty Jazz team in 2008 and flawed Blazers/Rockets team in the 2nd round in 2015, while the Spurs will go against the 3rd best team in the conference led by Chris Paul..

Wow, yeah looks like it . At least we don't have an abundance of old and ty role players this go around.

[apalisoc_9]

Wow, yeah looks like it . At least we don't have an abundance of old and ty role players this go around.

[spurraider21]

2008 spurs

[Cloud786]

[spurs1990]

2008 spurs

15 Duncan = 08 Duncan
15 Parker < 08 Parker
15 Ginobili < 08 Ginobili
Leonard > Bowen
Splitter > Oberto
Mills > Vaughn
Green > Finley
Bellinelli > Barry
Diaw > Horry
Baynes = Thomas
Bonner = Udoka

[Obstructed_View]

The Heisman is worse. A so-called "best player" award that completely ignores two entire units of the roster and is now only ever given to the most hyped quarterback (or sometimes running back) on the most hyped power-conference team. The year Suh got passed over for the award in favor of Plug-and-Play Alabama System RB #4538 cemented the whole thing as a joke.

Yeah, I tend to agree that it's flawed, but it's voted on by recipients so they have nobody to blame. They kind of do the NBA MVP thing and do best player on best team, but they tend toward most popular on best team, which is how you end up with Geno Torretta and Danny Wuerffel getting the award. It's probably right more often than it's wrong, though. EJ picked Jordan as DPOY tonight and nobody even challenged it. That's beyond re ed.

[Obstructed_View]

Westbrick is done, it's Curry and Harden's to fight over.

Point is, he should never even have been in the discussion. He missed games and his heroball has made the team worse, not better. Leonard's missed three more games, but his contribution to the success of his team can't be denied.

[SASdynasty!]

Thanks for this update, so the Spurs get the:

2 seed with a win.
3 seed with a Rockets loss (if we lose).
5 seed with a Rockets win and Grizzlies loss (if we lose).
6 seed with a Rockets and Grizzlies win (if we lose).

[Seventyniner]

Crazy. Like Mel said, there are 5 possible playoff opponents with one game left.

[UZER]

Point is, he should never even have been in the discussion. He missed games and his heroball has made the team worse, not better. Leonard's missed three more games, but his contribution to the success of his team can't be denied.

Exactly. And in this media mouthpiece era, they skew arguments for players that have no business being in the discussion. As much as I love Davis, they are fighting for an 8th seed. Having him in the "discussion" is a slap in the face to all the all-stars before that played balls out and never even got a mention because they weren't darlings.

Kobe is another one. They seriously had him in MVP talks earlier in the season. Regardless of he was going to win or not, it's just wrong. You better believe if the Lakes were in a battle for 8th, they'd be itching to give him another one.

[Obstructed_View]

Exactly. And in this media mouthpiece era, they skew arguments for players that have no business being in the discussion. As much as I love Davis, they are fighting for an 8th seed. Having him in the "discussion" is a slap in the face to all the all-stars before that played balls out and never even got a mention because they weren't darlings.

Kobe is another one. They seriously had him in MVP talks earlier in the season. Regardless of he was going to win or not, it's just wrong. You better believe if the Lakes were in a battle for 8th, they'd be itching to give him another one.

I tend to agree with this, but I think Davis is really in the discussion because he's just such a good player. Can't argue with his numbers. Realistically, is he the second best player in the league behind Lebron? Probably. Another thing to keep in mind is that they're fighting for an 8th seed in a division where everyone else has made the playoffs. The team is better than where they sit in the standings. If they were in any other division in the west, they'd be a lock for the playoffs, and if they were in the east, they'd probably be fourth or fifth.

[boutons_deux]

Another thing to keep in mind is that they're fighting for an 8th seed in a division where everyone else has made the playoffs. The team is better than where they sit in the standings. If they were in any other division in the west, they'd be a lock for the playoffs, and if they were in the east, they'd probably be fourth or fifth.

That 3 EC teams in the playoffs have worse records than the Pelicans, who would have 6th seed in the EC, is annual evidence that playoffs determined by conference record rather league record is stupid, unfair to players and fans.

[Obstructed_View]

That 3 EC teams in the playoffs have worse records than the Pelicans, who would have 6th seed in the EC, is annual evidence that playoffs determined by conference record rather league record is stupid, unfair to players and fans.

Agree completely. We currently have a season where every team in one division is in playoff contention, while in the other conference, there are two teams with losing records in the playoffs. If the rules don't change this offseason, they never will.

[will_spurs]

As much as I love Davis, they are fighting for an 8th seed. Having him in the "discussion" is a slap in the face to all the all-stars before that played balls out and never even got a mention because they weren't darlings.

Let's play the old "reshuffle the league and the teams get to draft like in a pickup game."

AD goes second at worst. I guess that's why he belongs in the MVP discussion, even though he doesn't have a great surrounding cast and happens to be playing in the absolute worst division in NBA history (.635 average W-L ratio).

[travis2]

With a couple of assumptions, these are estimates of the probability of each Spurs seed:

Spurs have 2 seed: 0.653
Spurs have 3 seed: 0.051
Spurs have 5 seed: 0.122
Spurs have 6 seed: 0.174

Assumptions:
1. Opening moneylines from CBSSports.com provide a reasonable basis for calculating the probability of a win
2. All games are independent

Calculation of game probabilities proceeded as follows:
1. Convert moneylines to decimal odds using http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fixed-odds_betting
2. Convert decimal odds to win %
3. Convert win % to probabilities by scaling to 100% (dividing win % by sum of win % for that game)

Seed probabilities were then calculated as the product of the individual game probabilities using the above table. Example: Win/Win/Win = (0.653)(0.854)(0.588)=0.328. All probabilities for 2 seed were then summed, as were probabilities for 3 seed. 5 and 6 have only one term each.

[z0sa]

Spurs need this win badly.

[21209]

It's looking more and more like the Spurs will either be facing the Mavericks or the Clippers in round one.

I don't see Houston or Memphis losing their finales even if both of their opponents have been hot as of late.

[will_spurs]

I don't see Houston or Memphis losing their finales even if both of their opponents have been hot as of late.

Indiana is in the playoffs if they win against Memphis. Add to that that Memphis will be missing players, and that they don't control their own fate (as in: they could win and finish 6th anyway), I could really see Memphis losing.

[cjw]

I don't see Houston or Memphis losing their finales even if both of their opponents have been hot as of late.

Memphis is favored by 3 by virtue of being home (perhaps with a combination of Indy logging heavy minutes yesterday). Indy needs to win to clinch playoff spot.

Utah has little incentive to win against Houston as it could help draft position vs. several other teams.

[timtonymanu]

Indiana will definitely play hard but they just came off a 2 OT game and Hill was limping. Don't know if they will have enough to beat Memphis. At this point, I'm just hoping for any seed but the 6th seed.

[Knoxxx]

So odds are with a loss we drop to 6th which is a bizarre situation but about what I figured.

[apalisoc_9]

6th is probably not that bad, IMO. Sure first round is going to be tough...but you win that round and you get an easier matchup against Houston or Dallas in the 2nd round..