The NBA regular season is entering its final phase. There’s still a month until the start of the playoffs, the moment of truth. Everything that has happened so far is just a prelude to seeing who makes the playoffs, whether one team has home field advantage over another and what rivals they face en route to the championship ring. With less than four weeks of regular season left, the Denver Nuggets are the clear leaders in the Western Conference, while the Milwaukee Bucks have overtaken the Boston Celtics in the east. The excitement is definitely closer to the bottom of the table in any conference, where teams like LeBron James’ Lakers or Zion Williamson’s New Orleans Pelicans are struggling not to end the season too early.
Each conference consists of 15 teams. The first six of them go straight to the playoffs, while those who remain between places seven and ten participate in the play-ins, a kind of play-off. The seventh plays against the eighth and whoever wins takes seventh place in the playoffs. The loser of those two plays against the winner of a match between ninth and tenth place, and from there comes eighth place for the playoffs.
Recent trades appear to have raised West levels at the East’s expense. The Brooklyn Nets have lost their two biggest stars: Kevin Durant, moving to the Phoenix Suns, and Kyrie Irving, moving to Luka Dončić’s Dallas Mavericks. The Lakers, the Clippers and the Warriors, who are bringing back Gary Payton II, also emerged stronger from the last market window. The American basketball professional league is a month away from the playoffs.
western conference
The Denver Nuggets (46 wins and 23 losses) have a comfortable lead in the West despite not seeing their best. Nikola Jokić unveils his candidacy to capture the league’s Best Player award for the third year in a row. Under the Serb’s leadership, the Nuggets made their home ground a stronghold in the first half of the season. Some doubts have surfaced as they endure their worst result streak of the season with four straight losses, but they did their homework in time and maintain a solid lead over the Memphis Grizzlies, second, and the Sacramento Kings, third.
The Grizzlies temporarily removed their star Ja Morant from the team for showing himself holding a gun on social media. With a record of 41-26, they are expected to battle for second place in the conference with the Kings (40 wins 27 losses), currently the fittest team in the west, thanks in no small part to Domantas’ good form Sabonis, another European center to make the difference, and De’Aaron Fox, the team’s top scorer.
Behind those three teams are the Phoenix Suns (37-31) fourth in the West and fifth, the Golden State Warriors, current NBA champions. Stephen Curry’s men have progressed from less to more and are another of the fit teams. They can’t be ruled out at all, but they’re not even a guaranteed playoff entry.
Between the fifth-placed Warriors with 36 wins and 33 losses and 12th-place West occupied by the Utah Jazz (33 wins and 36 losses), the differences with 3 games and 13 games remaining are very small. In that small lead are the Clippers (36-33), the Timberwolves (35-34), the Dallas Mavericks (34-35), the Lakers (34-35), the Thunder (34-35), the Pelicans (33 -36) and Utah Jazz (33-36), in that order.
In this group, it’s surprising how poorly Irving has been fitting in at the moment into some injury-strewn Mavericks, the collapse of the Pelicans after a brilliant first third of the season, and the good moments of the Lakers, who at least have that play within reach and, if he continues in its current form, return to the playoffs. That Tuesday, while LeBron James was out, those from Los Angeles walked past some aimless pelicans.
Milwaukee Bucks player Giannis Antetokounmpo (34) in Tuesday’s game against the Sacramento Kings Randall Benton (AP)
east conference
In the east, the team going into the playoffs in the best form is Giannis Antetokounmpo’s Milwaukee Bucks, another contender for regular-season player thanks to his average of 31.5 points and 11.9 rebounds per game. In addition, the Wisconsin defense is a compact, serious and disciplined team that has maintained a good level even in moments of star loss. Not only do they lead the East with 49 wins and 19 losses, they also have the best record in the entire NBA.
Second in the East (47 wins and 22 losses) are the Boston Celtics, conference champions last year and thus finalists in the NBA 2022. After the controversial replacement of coach Ime Udoka by Joe Mazzulla, the team He has become He was a good part the season leader but is now going through a so-so result streak. With Jason Tatum hungry for victory and Jaylen Brown to complement him perfectly, they are candidates for anything.
In the East, the other spots in the playoffs seem a bit more secure, with the 76ers in third place (45 wins and 22 losses), followed by the Cavaliers (44-27), the Knicks (40-30) and the Nets ( 39-30). Only the Miami Heat (seventh with 37-33) still have a chance to fight for the six direct places.
The one that is animated is the fight for the piece. The Atlanta Hawks, eighth with 34 wins and 35 losses, have some advantage, but then four teams battle closely for the remaining two spots. After a spectacular first quarter, the Raptors beat the Nuggets, leaders of the West, on Tuesday with 33 wins and 36 losses. First up are the Washington Wizards, who comfortably beat bottom-placed Detroit Pistons at Capital One Arena in the capital this Tuesday with a very good game by Bradley Beal and Kristaps Porziņģis to give them a 32-37 record. They are hot on the heels of the Chicago Bulls (31-36) and Indiana Pacers (31-38), who are yet to make the playoffs.
The regular season concludes with the 15 game Super Day on Sunday April 9th which will conclude the positioning. The play-in games will be played between April 11th and 14th and the playoffs will start on April 15th. After a month and a half of playoffs, the NBA Finals between the winners of the West and the East will be played in the best of seven games starting June 1.
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