Sky's the limit
The wonderful, young rascals known as the Portland Trail Blazers just keep doing it. If the playoffs started today, I believe they'd be the third or fourth seed in the Western Conference.
| Posted at 1:25 AM | Permalink |
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Comments (7)
1st in the division!
Next week is a brutal beginning to the big road trip. NJ, Raptors, Celts will all be tough games. Big test.
Posted by Sebastian | January 10, 2008 8:23 AM
Don't be fooled. Blazers make the Western Conference Playoffs if they win the (weak) NW Division. Currently they are 1/2 game ahead of Denver. Without the division crown, Portland is only 2 1/2 games from being out of the playoffs all together.
It's been a nice run, but they are still making up for a really slow start.
Posted by Carlos | January 10, 2008 10:17 AM
Maybe they're only 2 1/2 from being out of the playoffs, but they're also only 3 games behind the Suns for first place for the entire Western Conference. The West is incredibly tight at this (admittedly early) point in the season.
Posted by John | January 10, 2008 2:20 PM
Carlos,
You just described 8 teams in the West. There is a clegroup of 10 solid playoff caliber teams in the West, it will be a dogfight til the end, the difference between the #3 seed and teams 9 and 10 that don't make it will be minimal.
For this team just being in that mix is good enough, making the playoffs will be nice, but just fighting down to the wire for them will be a huge learning curve.
As usual, the depth of good teams is in the West, I've seen most rankings with the top 13 being the 10 in the West plus Detroit, Boston and Orlando. Seems about right, if we were in the East we'd be battling the Magic for 3rd seed. But all in all I'll take the competition of the West, the goal is to win a title, not a fancy playoff seed. Going through the wars out here year after year will make that more possible.
Posted by Eric K | January 10, 2008 3:12 PM
They'd be 6th seed as of today, but they are movin' in the right direction.
Posted by Mike | January 10, 2008 3:20 PM
Don't they get up to the third seed if they win their division?
Posted by Jack Bog | January 10, 2008 3:24 PM
Third or fourth:
The top four seeds will be the three division winners plus the team with the next best record. Those four will be ordered by record (and tiebreakers if needed), so it's possible that two teams in the same division could hold the top two spots, with the other two division winners at Nos. 3 and 4.
Seeds 5 through 8 are the next four teams according to record (and tiebreakers if needed).
First Round matchups are as follows:
1 vs. 8
4 vs. 5
2 vs. 7
3 vs. 6
Conference Semifinals matchups are as follows:
1-8 Winner vs. 4-5 Winner
2-7 Winner vs. 3-6 Winner
Homecourt advantage for any series is determined by record, not seed. So, it's possible that the 5 seed could have homecourt advantage over the 4, or that the 6 seed could have homecourt advantage over the 3.
Tiebreakers
(1) Head-to-head
(2) Division record (if the teams are in the same division)
(3) Conference record
(4) Record vs. Playoff teams, own conference
(5) Record vs. Playoff teams, other conference
(6) Net points, all games
Posted by Jack Bog | January 10, 2008 3:29 PM