Analysis: Where the Rockets stand with potential West tiebreakers

Entering February, here’s where the Rockets stand with regards to potential tiebreakers, and why Dallas is the primary team to track.

Entering Sunday’s home game versus New Orleans, the Houston Rockets are 30-18 and in the No. 5 spot in the Western Conference. They have 34 games left to play in the 2019-20 regular season.

However, given how tightly bunched the West standings are, it would be misleading to focus solely on their seed at a given moment. The Rockets are only three games back in the loss column of No. 2 Denver, and just two games ahead of No. 7 Oklahoma City.

Things can change very quickly, for better or for worse.

Thus, as the season hits the home stretch, it’s becoming quite possible that Houston could end up tied with one or more teams. In that case, tiebreakers would be used to decide seeding for the NBA playoffs.

Tiebreaker rules are available at the bottom of the league’s official standings page. As far as what that means for the Rockets entering February, it varies on a case-by-case basis.

Dallas Mavericks

Dallas is the most important team to track, from a Houston perspective. At the moment, the Rockets and Mavs (30-19) have split their two games so far this season, with two more remaining in Dallas.

If they split head-to-head, the next tiebreaker criteria would be division record, since both teams are in the same division. (For teams in different divisions, it would be conference record.) At the moment, Dallas has the edge with only one Southwest loss, as compared to four for Houston. That means the Rockets probably need to maintain, or ideally expand, their current advantage in the standings to hold off Dallas.

But the biggest reason Dallas’ record is so important to the Rockets is because both teams are fighting for the Southwest Division title, and thus it affects all of Houston’s other potential tiebreakers as well.

In a tie of three teams or more, the first criteria is eliminating the non-division winners. For a two-team tie, if the head-to-head meetings are split, the division tiebreaker is next on the list.

So if the Rockets can hold off Dallas and win the Southwest Division, it significantly boosts their odds of winning several other tiebreakers as well. For example, between the Nuggets, Jazz, and Thunder, only one can win the Northwest Division. Similarly, while the Clippers still have an opportunity to tie the season series with the Rockets, they’re unlikely to win the Pacific Division because of the presence of the Lakers (37-11).

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Denver Nuggets

The Rockets and Nuggets (34-15) have concluded their four games in the 2019-20 season, with each side winning twice at home. At the moment, Denver would seem well positioned for a potential tiebreaker against Houston, since they’ve been disproportionately stronger in the West.

Though the Nuggets have just three less overall losses than the Rockets, they have six fewer losses in the Western Conference.

However, this is a prime example of where the division title could be very important. If the Rockets win their division and the Nuggets don’t win theirs, Houston would own the tiebreaker over Denver — even if the Nuggets have a superior conference record (which they likely will).

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Utah Jazz

The Rockets and Jazz (32-17) play just three times this season, so there will be a head-to-head winner. The Rockets won on Jan. 27 in Utah, giving them an opportunity to clinch the head-to-head tiebreaker when the Jazz make a return visit to Houston next Sunday, Feb. 9.

If the Rockets aren’t able to win that game, the rubber match would be Saturday, Feb. 22 back in Salt Lake City.

Should the Rockets win at least one of those two games, it would give Houston the edge on Utah in a two-team tie, and most likely in a three-team tie unless the Jazz win their division and the Rockets do not.

If they clinch the tiebreaker versus Utah, it’s probably to the advantage of the Rockets to cheer for the Jazz to win the Northwest Division, since Houston likely needs Denver to not win its division in order to earn that potential tiebreaker. The Nuggets and Jazz have three head-to-head meetings still left this season, including two in the season’s final 10 days in April. Those could prove pivotal.

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Los Angeles Clippers

The Rockets have won two of three games this season versus the Clippers (34-15), with the final matchup looming March 5 in Houston. If the Rockets win that game, they would secure the season series and the head-to-head tiebreaker over Los Angeles.

If the Clippers win in March, it gets murky. The Clippers currently have 11 losses in the West compared to 14 for the Rockets ⁠— but that’s less important than it might sound, since they have three fewer losses overall, as well. For the teams to end up tied, the Rockets would have to have made up three games on the Clippers, anyway. It’s quite possible that the shrinking of that gap could come based on conference results.

Should the conference record of both teams also end up tied, the next tiebreaker would be record vs. other West playoff teams.

However, this is another scenario where the Southwest title could be huge for the Rockets. The Clippers are four games back of the Lakers in the loss column for the Pacific Division. If that lead holds up, the Rockets would still earn the tiebreaker, even if the Clippers manage to split the season series and finish with a better in-conference mark than Houston or record versus other West playoff teams.

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Oklahoma City Thunder

The Rockets lost the season series to the Thunder (30-20), two games to one, which gives Oklahoma City the tiebreaker in two-team scenarios.

However, in a tie of three or more teams, the Rockets could still edge out the Thunder (who are five back in the Northwest Division) if Houston holds off Dallas to win the Southwest.

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Overall, the biggest variable by far is where the Rockets stand relative to Dallas. If Houston wins the Southwest Division, then not only does that inherently mean that they’re ahead of the Mavs in the race for playoff seeding, but it also could push them past other teams as well, thanks to the league’s tiebreaker rules and the importance of division titles.