How the Rockets, Thunder, Jazz tiebreakers worked in Western Conference seeding

The Houston Rockets, Oklahoma City Thunder and Utah Jazz finished the year tied. Here’s how the tiebreakers were decided.

The Oklahoma City Thunder tied with the Houston Rockets and Utah Jazz, finishing in the middle of them in the NBA standings.

All three teams finished 44-28, a .611 winning percentage.

Houston has the fourth seed, Oklahoma City the fifth and Utah with the sixth.

Because it’s a three-team tiebreaker, the criteria is slightly different than it would be in cases of two teams.

The first tiebreaker is if any team was a division winner. Houston won the Southwest Division while the Thunder and Jazz finished behind the Denver Nuggets in the Northwest, so the Rockets got the fourth seed.

The next decider is which team had the best head-to-head winning percentage between the three teams.

Oklahoma City was 2-1 against both teams, a .667 winning percentage.

Houston beat the Jazz in two of three matchups, finishing with a .500 record between those matchups with Utah and the Thunder. The Jazz were 2-4 overall, well behind the Thunder and Rockets.

So it turns out that Thunder vs. Jazz game in March that was suspended and then played for Oklahoma City’s first bubble game ended up being the deciding factor between the Thunder and Jazz for the fifth seed.

Oklahoma City got the fifth seed and will play the Rockets in the first round.

Utah, meanwhile, will go up against the Denver Nuggets in a matchup between the third and sixth seeds.

The Thunder and Rockets will tip off the first game of the series on Tuesday at 5:30 p.m.

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