Your answer, excerpted from BlazersEdge. http://www.blazersedge.com/2009/4/12/832485/playoff-seeding-update-danny
So unless they each lose a game and the Rockets loss is to a division team if all three of us end up tied we'll have 4th and HCA?
Because of how the remaining games play out. The reason the Spurs are listed ahead of the Rockets is because of they've played one more division game than the Rockets so they technically have a better record right now. If everyone won out the Rockets will have ended playing just as many division games as the Spurs, and that tie-breaker edge will disappear because it will be impossible for them to have a tied record without having a tied division record (and consequently conference record). In the end with identical records Houston will have the edge, and so will Portland.
Well, it looks like the Rockets now folks, unless they can pull off an upset victory in Dallas, which I think is less than likely. I thought San Antonio might lose to GS, but that's not happening. There's also a chance that NO could upset SA at home, but SA is more likely to win that game. It's funny, because the Rockets last game will probably mean the difference between 2nd place and 5th place!! If they win, they win the tie breaker with Denver.
So here's what it boils down to, ASSUMING Portland beats Denver: Houston win, San Antonio Win or Loss: Blazers 4th seed, HCA vs. Spurs. Houston Loses, San Antonio Win: Blazers 4th seed, HCA vs. Rockets Houston Loses, San Antonio Loses: Blazers 3rd seed, HCA vs. Hornets. There's no scenario possible where the Blazers can play Dallas in the 1st round (thank God). If the Blazers lose vs. Denver, they would need both Houston AND San Antonio to lose to get HCA. Otherwise, 5th seed vs. either team.
I wonder how hard Denver will fight on Wednesday. They have HCA locked up, and it's hard to say whether they want NOH or DAL, and also hard to say which one they would get with a win or loss in Portland. NOH has the tie breaker over DAL, and maybe Denver won't mind slipping to 3rd to get NOH.
3 games, so 8 possible scenarios. Lets say each game was 50/50 these would be the odds of each 1st round matchup; 4/8 SA@POR 1/8 POR@SA 1/8 HOU@POR 1/8 POR@HOU 1/8 NO@POR assuming blazers win and other 2 games are 50/50 these are the odds; 2/4 SA@POR 1/4 HOU@POR 1/4 NO@POR
I really don't want to play Houston. Gosh think I might prefer the 5 seed vs SA then the 4 vs Houston.
3 games left DEN@POR, HOU@DAL, NO@SA Scenario1 W-Por,Dal,SA 2.Nug 3.SA 4.Blazers 5.Rockets 6.Dal 7.NO Scenario2 W-Por,Dal,No 2.Nug 3.Blazers 4.Rockets 5.SA 6.NO 7.Dal Scenario3 W-Por,Hou (NO@SA irrelevant) 2.Rockets 3.Nug 4.Blazers 5.SA 6.NO 7.Dal Scenario4 W-Den,Dal,SA 2.Nug 3.SA 4.Rockets 5.Blazers 6.Dal 7.NO Scenario5 W-Den,No (HOU@DAL irrelevant) 2.Nug 3.Rockets 4.Blazers 5.SA 6.NO 7.Dal Scenario6 W-Den,Hou,SA 2.Nug 3.Rockets 4.SA 5.Blazers 6.NO 7.Dal
Tuesday morning update: For 1st Seed Lakers (64-17) UTA... Have 1st locked up For 2nd through 5th Seed Nuggets (54-27) @POR... Have tie-breakers over Blazers and Spurs, but not over Rockets. Have Northwest Division locked up. Cannot finish lower than 3rd. Rockets (53-28) @DAL... Have tie-breakers over Blazers, Nuggets, and Spurs. Blazers (53-28) DEN... Have tie-breaker over Spurs unless Spurs win their division, but not over Nuggets or Rockets. Cannot finish 2nd. Spurs (53-28) NOH... Have no tie-breakers, except if they win the division, in which case they beat out the Blazers. Cannot finish 2nd. For 6th through 8th Seed (Any team can still get any seed) Hornets (49-32) @SAS... Have tie-breaker over Mavericks, but not over Jazz. Mavericks (49-32) HOU... Have no tie-breakers. Jazz (48-33) @LAL... Have tie-breakers over Mavericks and Hornets. All games are on Wednesday except UTA@LAL, which is on Tuesday.
If the home teams won, the final standings would be: 1. Lakers (65-17) 2. Nuggets (54-28) 3. Spurs (54-28) 4. Trail Blazers (54-28) 5. Rockets (53-29) 6. Mavericks (50-32) 7. Hornets (49-33) 8. Jazz (48-34)
Looking at Draco's stuff, it looks like Portland has 6 out of 8 scenarios for home court in the 1st round, with... 1 of 8 for 3rd 5 of 8 for 4th, and... 2 of 8 for 5th.
With the Jazz loss we now have 6 possible playoff brackets as I edited above. Our game will for certain have an impact on seeding, but it may only be of interest to one team playing. SA+HOU both win meaningful to both teams,Denver for #2; us for HCA against SA SA win HOU loss, we will be playing for HCA against HOU, meaningless for Denver HOU win SA loss, Denver will be playing for #2, meaningless to us SA+HOU loss, we will be playing for #3, meaningless for Denver (unless they have a second round preference between POR/HOU) Also of note, a SA win HOU loss is the only scenario where NO is 7th seed, but it for sure matches us up with HOU.
This would really be a beautiful scenario for us. If Houston and San Antonio lose, Denver may rest starters since it's basically not that important to them. If Portland gets the 3 seed, they'd get New Orleans (by beating SA, they'd get the 6 seed), which would be a very nice first-round match-up and sets up a second-round match-up against the much-more beatable Nuggets, rather than the Lakers.
Alright! Six hours to the beginning of the end, after which this discussion is over. I'm going to be working through the game but I thoroughly enjoyed discussing this whole process with you folks. See you in the playoffs!!!
I'd just like to take this moment and toot my own horn. Swap out San Antonio for Philadelphia, and it was pretty dead on.
I had the same set of predictions. I picked them to win all their home games, win all road games against bad teams and lose road games to good teams. So I had a win against Philly and a loss against San Antonio. They canceled out.
