Tag: NBA Playoffs

4-Point Play: We’re all about Zion this week

We’re all about Zion this week, along with his emerging teammate, and there’s another player coming back from injury who could shape the Western Conference playoff race. That’s all ahead on this week’s NBA Four-Point Play.

We’re all about Zion this week, along with his emerging teammate, and there’s another player coming back from injury who could shape the Western Conference playoff race. That’s all ahead on this week’s NBA Four-Point Play.

David Stern dies at 77, but his impact on NBA will live forever

SportsPulse: USA TODAY Sports’ Jeff Zillgitt reflects on the life of former NBA commissioner David Stern who passed away at 77.

SportsPulse: USA TODAY Sports’ Jeff Zillgitt reflects on the life of former NBA commissioner David Stern who passed away at 77.

Chris Paul not surprised OKC competing for playoff spot

The Thunder are over .500 for the first time this year. ESPN’s NBA BPI Playoff Odds gives OKC an 85.4% chance to make the postseason.

Oklahoma City is over .500 for the first time this year, thanks in part to a season’s best four-game winning streak.

Dennis Schroder just won the Western Conference Player of the Week and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander set and then matched a career-high 32 points against the Suns and the Clippers.

OKC has continued on after losing their top two stars off of last year’s rosters.

They’ve found a way to deal with injuries to some of their key players. And they’ve competed in almost every game.

With low expectations heading into the season, there may be a lot of people that are surprised that the Oklahoma City Thunder contending for a playoff spot in the West.

But Chris Paul isn’t one of them.

“Yup,” Paul told Joe Mussatto of The Oklahoman after practice on Monday. “I thought we’d actually have a better record. I don’t know who I said it to at some point, but I said, no offense, but as long as I’m on the court I feel like we’ve always got a chance. I don’t care what the team is, what it looks like, who it is or whatever.”

As noted by Mussatto, the oddsmakers are siding with Paul.

As of the time of writing on Thursday, December 26, FiveThirtyEight gives Oklahoma City a 79% chance to make the postseason while ESPN’s NBA BPI Playoff Odds have the Thunder at 85.4%.

Don’t get too crazy though, both sites place OKC’s odds of winning a championship at less than .1%.

However, those numbers reflect the Thunder as they are now, with Paul, Danilo Gallinari, and Steven Adams. And with those players available to be traded, a roster shakeup in Oklahoma City could be imminent.

But Paul’s not worried about that right now. He’s focusing on the “small victories”.

“Everybody always tries to tell your story,” Paul said. “Everybody said I didn’t want to be here either. You know what I mean? I think for us it’s just about continuing to play hard and not get ahead of ourselves. Understand it’s a lot of season left. We just got above .500. You take the small victories.”

Oklahoma City will try and complete a perfect homestand with a win over the Grizzlies on Thursday night.

Tip-off against Memphis is at 7 p.m. inside Chesapeake Energy Arena.

With outside help, Rockets blast up West standings on Sunday’s off day

With helpful results on Sunday’s NBA scoreboard, the Rockets moved up to the No. 3 spot in the West and are only a half-game back of No. 2.

The Houston Rockets didn’t have a game Sunday, but they may have still felt like winners based on results elsewhere in the NBA and how they impacted the race for seeding in the 2020 Western Conference playoffs.

The Dallas Mavericks (19-10) and Los Angeles Clippers (22-10) blew leads of 30 points and 18 points, respectively, in close losses Sunday at Toronto and Oklahoma City.

Meanwhile, the Los Angeles Lakers (24-6) were blown out by 24 points at Denver (20-8), representing their third consecutive defeat. LeBron James is out at the moment with a thoracic muscle strain in his rib cage area, as well as a nagging groin issue, according to ESPN.

It all resulted in a tremendous off day for the Rockets, who improved to 20-9 themselves with Saturday’s win at Phoenix.

The losses by the Mavs and Clippers pushed them behind Houston in the Western Conference standings, moving the Rockets to the West’s No. 3 seed. They’re only a half-game behind the Nuggets for the No. 2 seed, and suddenly just three back in the loss column of the Lakers for No. 1.

The Rockets and Lakers have yet to play any of their three head-to-head meetings of the 2019-20 season, so there’s ample opportunity for Houston to make a further push in the weeks and months ahead.

It’s quite a turn from just one week ago, when the Rockets were in the No. 5 spot and six games back of the Lakers in the loss column. They also had more losses than the Mavs and Clippers.

Now, after a 3-0 week, Houston has cut its deficit to the Lakers in half while leapfrogging both of the other two teams.

There’s a very long way to go, of course, with most teams only through approximately 30 games of the 82-game regular season. In other words, we’re still about 10 games out from even approaching the halfway point.

But the past week’s results are a good reminder of how quickly the standings can change — especially in the West, where the top six teams of the Lakers, Nuggets, Rockets, Clippers, Mavs, and Utah Jazz could be tightly bunched in the weeks ahead.

For the Rockets to continue their upward move, they’ll need to continue winning games at a high rate. They’ve currently won three games in a row and nine of 12, with Monday night’s game at Sacramento (12-17) offering their next opportunity to keep the momentum rolling.

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