Tiebreaker update: Where Rockets stand vs. West playoff rivals

Here’s where the Rockets stand with potential tiebreakers against the five West teams they’re competing for playoff seeding with.

With Thursday’s game versus the Los Angeles Clippers now in the rear-view mirror, the Houston Rockets (39-22) have completed play against all but one of the five Western Conference teams that they’re competing with for seeding in the upcoming 2020 NBA playoffs.

Entering Saturday, the Rockets trailed the top-seeded Lakers in the loss column by nine games, and they were 10 games ahead of No. 8 Memphis for the final playoff spot. Thus, rising or falling to one of those spots is very unlikely, with only 21 games left in the 2019-20 regular season.

However, anywhere between No. 2 and No. 7 is quite reasonable. The current No. 2 is the Clippers, who the Rockets trail by three games in the loss column, while the No. 7 is Dallas — who they lead by three. With six teams in such tight proximity, ties after 82 games are quite possible.

Of the five teams they’re competing with, the Rockets have secured the two-team tiebreaker over Utah (22 losses) by winning the season series, while they would lose the tiebreaker to Oklahoma City (24 losses).

Houston (22 losses) split the season series with Denver (20 losses) and the Clippers (19 losses) at two games apiece, and they’re also tied with the Mavericks (25 losses) at one game each — though they still have two meetings left on March 23 and April 7, both in Dallas.

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The biggest key for the Rockets is holding off the Mavs, because what happens relative to Dallas also poses the potential to impact how any ties between Houston and the Clippers and/or Nuggets would be broken.

In two-team ties, the second tiebreaker after head-to-head results is whether a team won its division. In three-team ties, division status represents the first tiebreaker. The Clippers almost certainly won’t win the Pacific, since they trail the Lakers by six games in the loss column.

Thus, if Houston holds off Dallas in the Southwest, they would almost assuredly earn the tiebreaker against the Clippers.

The Nuggets do currently lead the Northwest, but only by two games over the Jazz. Should Utah manage to catch Denver, Houston would also win any tie against the Nuggets for the same reason.

The Rockets winning the Southwest is vital, because if they don’t, they are poorly positioned for tiebreakers. Should Houston not win its division, the next tiebreaker is conference record, and the Rockets have more losses against the West than any of the other five teams.

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Houston also has two additional in-division losses than the Mavericks. So if the Mavs and Rockets were to end up tied for the Southwest, they’re not in a good spot for that tiebreaker unless they win both games at Dallas to secure the season series at three games to one.

But if the Rockets pull off that feat, it’s hard to imagine how they could possibly be tied with Dallas at the end of the season, since they already have a three-game lead on the Mavs in the loss column.

Realistically, should the Rockets and Mavs end up tied, it would almost certainly mean that Dallas won at least one of those head-to-head meetings. If that’s the case, Dallas would likely win any tiebreaker.

In short, the biggest priority for the Rockets (39-22) is maintaining their current advantage and holding off the Mavericks (38-25) to win the Southwest Division championship.

If they do that, not only will they be guaranteed to be ahead of the Mavs in 2020 NBA playoffs seeding, but they would also be in strong position to hold tiebreakers over the Clippers and potentially the Nuggets, as well.

One small silver lining is that if the Rockets are caught by the Mavericks, it would seem unlikely that they’d be in a position to tie the Nuggets and Clippers, anyway, since they already trail them by two and three games. In that doomsday scenario, tiebreakers could be inconsequential.

The bottom line: If Houston takes care of its own business, they’re well positioned for most tiebreakers, since the only team they’d definitely lose one against (Oklahoma City) is two games back in the loss column. It’s up to James Harden, Russell Westbrook, and the rest of the Rockets to take advantage of that opportunity as the regular season draws to a close.