The NBA changed that several seasons ago. Teams were getting upset that other teams with lower records were getting higher seeds because they won their division.
538 gives us a 69% chance of winning and the Spurs only a 39% chance of winning the next game. Hope that holds true. https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2018-nba-predictions/games/?ex_cid=rrpromo
A loss by the Spurs to the Clippers would be HUGE because Portland (with a win) could really start playing guys limited minutes and resting them for the Playoffs.
Portland's magic number is 3 (any combination of PDX wins and SAS losses). A Spurs loss to Clips with a Blazers win in Dallas would only be 2. We'd still be in need of an additional win before we can rest players.
Wait, I'm confused. you said combination... so a win and a loss is a combination of 2 of those things happening, so then wouldn't it be 1?
Yes. Any combination of Spurs losses and Portland wins totaling 3. In the discussion above: SAS loosing to Clippers (1) + Blazers winning against Mavs (1) Only equals 2 Blazers would still need to get one additional win (so that the total would reach 3) before they put it in cruise control for the rest of the season.
He should know better because of the year we played Memphis as a 4th seeded divisional winner without home court advantage.
Ehhh, if SAS loses 3 times, but UTA wins out, they could pass us. I'd say a combination of wins by us and losses by teams tied for 4th in the loss column that could win a tiebreaker against us... complicated. Haha.
Oh shit, thanks. I read it as 3 down to 0, not 0 up to 3. We were thinking the same thing I just took the information differently. LOL. Thanks.
Wait how could we not have home court advantage if we were 4th place and were division champions? Tiebreakers?
Grizzlies had better record. Team with better record gets HCA. We have had home court advantage ONCE in last 18 years: 2009 first round.
Nope, it went to the team with the best rebooted, while winning the division guarunteed a top 4 seed regardless of record.
No we were actually 6th place that year but got "4 seed" because we were division winner. It really pissed off Doc Rivers who ended up having to face Spurs in first round because of it. Needless to say, he beat the Spurs but then choked on Rockets.
Im still confused. If it was during the time winning the division got the top 4 seeds and we won the division and had 4th how did memphis get HCA.
Because the still have a top 4 seed to division winners but no longer gave HCA to the top 4 seeds. HCA went to whoever had the better record.
Matchups as of now: (1) Rockets vs. (8) Pelicans (2) Warriors vs. (7) Wolves (3) Blazers vs. (6) Thunder (4) Jazz vs. (5) Spurs
