Despite being on the outside looking in presently, the New Orleans Pelicans are one of the teams that are projected to figure most heavily into the playoff picture in the Western Conference. While the Pelicans are 3.5 games out of the eighth seed with just eight games left in the regular season, New Orleans needs to just secure the No. 9 seed and be four games or closer to the No. 8 seed to force a play-in tournament.
Kevin Pelton of ESPN used Real Plus-Minus (RPM) and simulated the season 500 times to see the most likely outcomes. While the Grizzlies were, not shockingly, the odds-on favorite to secure the No. 8 seed, the Pelicans were far and away the second most-likely.
More realistically, New Orleans was the heavy favorite to earn the No. 9 seed. The Pelicans earned the ninth seed 35.6% of the time with Memphis actually being the second-most common ninth seed at 20.2%. Portland and Sacramento came in at 15.8% and 14.5%, respectively, while the Spurs reached the ninth seed 6.1% of the time and the Suns just 0.4%.
While reaching the ninth seed doesn’t automatically trigger a play-in game, the likelihood of the eighth seed finishing more than four games ahead of the ninth seed in the short window is unlikely. And with Memphis finishing in the eighth or ninth seed 88.4% and the Pelicans landing in one of those two spots 53.6%, it’s more likely than not that a play-in game between Memphis and New Orleans could be in the cards.
Based on previous meetings this season, that spells good things for New Orleans. The Pelicans had a record shooting night against New Orleans on Martin Luther King Jr. Day and only a late comeback attempt made the game seem more competitive than it was. Eleven days later, the Pelicans blew out Memphis at home, 139-111. The two sides will meet once in the league’s restart, a game that will carry a lot of weight.
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