NBA Rewind: Everything that’s at stake in the season’s final week

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We’re down to the last seven days of this season, and there is a ton to track. The Western Conference standings are all over the place. The tanking is out of control with some of these teams. And we have all kinds of squads going on big runs and horrible stretches at the worst times. We’ll give you the extended thoughts from the stock report and everything to keep an eye on the rest of the regular season.

Here’s your latest NBA Rewind!

NBA Stock Report extended

Not every market is bad. Topical! There are lots of good trends happening in the NBA Stock Market. We have a massive race for seeds 3-8 in the West, with four teams tied with the same record. We have teams fading away from the Play-In safety net, and a young team about to lock up home court against everybody except one squad in its conference. It’s this week’s NBA Stock Report, with all the good and bad trends you need to know! 

📈 Race for the Nos. 5 and 6 seeds in the West: I couldn’t choose between singling out either the Golden State Warriors (46-32), Minnesota Timberwolves (46-32) or LA Clippers (46-32). All three of these teams are jockeying for the last two positions in the West before the Play-In Tournament. Memphis has faltered against good teams lately, allowing two of these teams to climb out of the Play-In, when we previously assumed only one of them would make it out. The Warriors have won five of their last six games. The Wolves have won six of their last seven games. And the Clippers have really been streaking, winning 14 of their last 17 games. Minnesota has a game this week against Memphis, and the Clippers and Warriors finish the season against each other. All three of these teams are peaking at the right time.

📉 Phoenix Suns (35-43): When the Dallas Mavericks were battling so many injuries that we were wondering if they might have to forfeit games, the Suns were coming on strong to regain some kind of control over their destiny. Then, Kevin Durant turned his ankle, the Mavericks got healthier and the Suns started free-falling. They’ve lost six straight games and face Golden State and the Oklahoma City Thunder in their next two. They’re 2.5 games behind Dallas for the 10th spot in the West with four games left to play. We don’t even know if Durant will be back for any of it. The Suns are 2-14 when Durant doesn’t play, 33-29 when he does. That is the difference in why they’re about to miss the Play-In.

📈 Houston Rockets (51-27): Since losing three straight at the beginning of March, the Rockets have been blasting off. Or a non-hacky way of saying it: They’re on fire. They’ve won 15 of their last 17 and are just about to secure the No. 2 seed in the West. That’s after going 41-41 last season and missing out on the Play-In Tournament. They haven’t even had Fred VanVleet (13 games) and Amen Thompson (10) during this entire stretch, and it hasn’t really mattered. Alperen Şengün continues to play All-NBA level ball. Jabari Smith Jr. has been excellent since he shifted to coming off the bench. And Jalen Green has had a lot of big games. This Rockets team is tough, plays defense and is a little bit of hot shooting away from a deep playoff run.

📉 Atlanta Hawks (37-41): The Hawks must be very happy the Utah Jazz exist, because they briefly got Atlanta out of its funk on Sunday. Even with that win over whatever Utah is putting on the floor right now, the Hawks are still struggling lately. They’ve won just two of their last seven games and have relinquished home court in a potential 7-8 matchup with Orlando in the Play-In Tournament. There’s still plenty of time left to leap ahead of the Magic. They play Orlando twice in their final four games here. But their defense has been the fifth-worst in the NBA over the last two weeks.

📈 New York Knicks (50-28): The Knicks have won seven of their last nine games, putting to rest any idea that they might lose the No. 3 seed in the East. The majority of this nine-game stretch happened without Jalen Brunson, who missed 15 straight games with an ankle injury. The Knicks got some good news, though. He returned Sunday in the win over Phoenix. He didn’t play great against the Suns, but he did log 34 minutes, and he’s got time to find a groove and his legs before the postseason starts in a little under two weeks. This is all trending the right way for New York.

Jalen Brunson is back, and the Knicks are streaking. (Vincent Carchietta / Imagn Images)

📉 Denver Nuggets (47-32): The Nuggets have now lost four straight games, which isn’t a total disaster until you realize they had a chance at the No. 2 seed like a week and a half ago. Now they’re trying to stay out of the Play-In Tournament. They’re just a half-game ahead of the four-car pileup of Golden State, Minnesota, the Clippers and Memphis. Nikola Jokić missed one of those games, but he is averaging 45 points, 12.3 rebounds, 10.7 assists and two steals while shooting 62.0 percent from the field, 44.8 percent from 3 and 80 percent from the line in the other three. The Nuggets still couldn’t win them. Not only that, but they’re not sure if they’ll get Jamal Murray (hamstring) back on the court before postseason action begins.

The Week Ahead: What’s at stake in the final week

We officially have one week left in the 2024-25 regular season, and everything is counting down toward Sunday when all 30 teams are going to play in one final Gamemaggedon to settle the final standings. This is everything you’ll need to keep track of in this final week. The No. 1 seeds in the East and West are set. And the No. 2 seed in the East is set. The Play-In teams in the East are set with five lottery teams officially eliminated. Four teams have been officially eliminated in the West. 

Eastern Conference

The No. 3 seed hunt

The Knicks are knocking on the door of locking up the third seed. They have a three-game lead on the Indiana Pacers with four games left. The Knicks also own the tie-breaker over the Pacers with a 2-1 season series win. All they need is to win one game or for the Pacers to lose one game.

• Knicks remaining games: vs. Boston, at Detroit, vs. Cleveland, at Brooklyn
• Pacers remaining games: vs. Washington, Cleveland and Orlando, at Cleveland

The No. 4 seed hunt

The Milwaukee Bucks still technically have a chance at the fourth seed. They’re three games behind Indiana with four games left. Milwaukee holds the tiebreaker over Indiana with a 3-1 season series win. If the Bucks win out and Indiana loses three or more games, Milwaukee gets fourth. If the Bucks go 3-1 and Indiana loses the rest of its games, the Bucks get fourth. If Indiana wins two games, Milwaukee cannot get fourth.

• Bucks remaining games: vs. Wolves and Pelicans, at Pistons, vs. Pistons

The No. 5 seed hunt

Speaking of the Bucks, they’re also trying to hold off the Detroit Pistons from moving up to fifth. The Bucks have a one-game lead on the Pistons, and their season series has not been decided yet. The Bucks have a 2-0 season series lead, but their last two games of the season are against Detroit. If the Pistons take both of those games, it gets dicey because their division records would then be tied. It goes to conference record, and Detroit would end up with a better conference record. That’s assuming a tie with all of this happening.

• Pistons remaining games: vs. Kings, Knicks and Bucks, at Bucks

Play-In positioning

We know the Magic, Hawks, Chicago Bulls and Miami Heat will be in the East Play-In. We just don’t know the order. Orlando is currently in seventh. The Magic are one game ahead of Atlanta. The Hawks are one game ahead of Chicago. The Bulls are one game ahead of Miami. This can become a bit of a mess, so let’s examine:

Orlando’s season series with Atlanta is 1-1 so far. These teams play each other twice in the final week. In the event of a split, Orlando would win the tiebreaker with a better division record. Atlanta’s season series with Chicago is 2-2, and the Hawks should have the tiebreaker over the Bulls because of conference record. They currently have a two-game cushion over Chicago in that category. Chicago is up 2-0 in its three-game season series against Miami, so it owns the tiebreaker over the Heat no matter what.

• Magic remaining games: vs. Hawks and Celtics, at Pacers, at Hawks
• Hawks remaining games: at Magic, at Nets, at 76ers, vs. Magic
• Bulls remaining games: at Cavs, vs. Heat, vs. Wizards, at 76ers
• Heat remaining games: vs. 76ers, at Bulls, at Pelicans, vs. Wizards

The Magic need to beat the Hawks twice to lock up home court in the 7-8 matchup in the Play-In. The Hawks should take care of business against the Brooklyn Nets and Philadelphia 76ers to keep Chicago at bay. The Heat have a great chance to jump the Bulls by winning out because three of their games are against unserious teams.

Tanking, anyone? 

Nothing too dramatic the rest of the way. The egregious tanking by the 76ers has them with the fifth-worst record as they try to keep their top-six protected pick. They’re two games “behind” the New Orleans Pelicans for the fourth-worst record. And they’re two games “ahead” of Brooklyn to potentially avoid one team leaping in the lottery to knock them out and send the pick to OKC.

The Charlotte Hornets need to lose three of their final four games to ensure a 14 percent chance at the top pick instead of falling to 12.5 percent if they fall below New Orleans.

65-game rule watch

The two biggest players of note for postseason award qualification are Brunson and Jaylen Brown. Brunson’s return on Sunday was his 62nd game. The Knicks have four more games, so as long as he plays in three of them, he’ll be eligible for All-NBA. Brown has played in 61 games. Not sure if he’s knocking on the door of All-NBA, but he won’t be eligible without playing out the rest of the season.

Western Conference

The No. 2 seed hunt

This is all but done. Mathematically, the Rockets haven’t secured the second seed yet. They just have to win one more game or the Los Angeles Lakers need just one more loss. If either of those happens, it’s over. If the Lakers win out and the Rockets lose out, then the Lakers would take it.

• Rockets remaining games: at Clippers, at Lakers, vs. Nuggets
• Lakers remaining games: at Thunder, at Mavs, vs. Rockets, at Blazers

Seeds 3-8 in the West are a mess

Good luck figuring out how this will shake out. The Lakers have a 1.5-game cushion on Denver and a two-game lead on the Clippers, Warriors, Wolves and Grizzlies. I think we can assume they’re going to be settled into the third seed, even if they go just 2-2 the rest of the way. So, let’s examine seeds 4-8 with acknowledgment that the Lakers aren’t out of the woods yet. As you may have read above, Denver is really struggling right now, so nothing is guaranteed. And the Nuggets have a tough remaining three games.

The tiebreakers shake out like this:

• Denver: Clippers ✅  (2-2, better conference record) | Warriors ✅ (2-1) | Wolves ❌ (0-4) | Grizzlies ❓ (1-1) with one to play.
• Clippers: Nuggets ❌ (2-2, worse conference record) | Warriors ✅ (3-0) | Wolves ❌ (0-3) | Grizzlies ✅ (3-0)
• Warriors: Nuggets ❌ (1-2) | Clippers ❌ (0-3) | Wolves ✅ (3-1) | Grizzlies ✅ (3-1)
• Wolves: Nuggets ✅ (4-0) | Clippers ✅ (3-0) | Warriors ❌ (1-3) | Grizzlies ❌ (0-2)
• Grizzlies: Nuggets ❓ (1-1) with one to play | Clippers ❌ (0-3) | Warriors ❌ (1-3) | Wolves ✅ (2-0)

When three or more teams are tied and none of them are division winners, then the tiebreaker goes to the best record in games played among all of the tied teams. That’s why you have the current situation with the four-way tie in the current standings. Here are the remaining games for these teams:

• Nuggets remaining games: at Kings, vs. Grizzlies, at Rockets
• Clippers remaining games: vs. Spurs and Rockets, at Kings, at Warriors
• Warriors remaining games: at Suns, vs. Spurs, at Blazers, vs. Clippers
• Wolves remaining games: at Bucks, at Grizzlies, vs. Nets and Jazz
• Grizzlies remaining games: at Hornets, vs. Wolves, at Nuggets, vs. Mavs

The last gasp of the Suns and Play-In hopes

This thing is pretty much over for Phoenix, but with respect to math and the bad karma the Mavericks acquired before the trade deadline, we have to just wait and see for a couple more days at least. Sacramento and Dallas should be safe for rounding out the West Play-In Tournament with the ninth and 10th spots. The Kings are a half-game ahead of Dallas, and the Mavs are 2.5 games ahead of what’s left of the Suns. The Kings have the tiebreaker over Dallas (3-0) and currently have it over Phoenix (2-1) with one game left between them. The Kings have an abysmal division record (4-10), so they would lose the tiebreaker to the Suns if they lose that final game of their season series. Dallas does not have the tiebreaker against Phoenix (1-3), so it needs to keep winning and get some help from Sacramento.

• Kings remaining games: at Pistons, vs. Nuggets, Clippers and Suns
• Mavs remaining games: vs. Lakers and Raptors, at Grizzlies
• Suns remaining games: vs. Warriors, Thunder and Spurs, at Kings

Tanking, anyone? 

The Pelicans are two games “behind” the Hornets to get into that hallowed 14 percent chance at the top pick. The Pels have shut down pretty much anybody who isn’t injured at this point, but they need Charlotte to win some games, or it doesn’t matter. They also shouldn’t win a couple more games, or Philadelphia might pass them if the 76ers lose out.

65-game rule watch

Durant is at 62 games and needs to play in three more to qualify for All-NBA honors. He’s nursing that ankle injury, and we’re not certain he can get back for three more games. It’s not looking good for Phoenix in a lot of ways.

(Top photo of Jalen Green: Tim Warner / Getty Images)

This news was originally published on this post .

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