Blinksportsnews247On the last day of the regular season, the Denver Nuggets find themselves in a difficult situation after their loss to the San Antonio Spurs on Friday completely changed the NBA playoff picture.
After an extremely sad loss, the Nuggets lost their position atop the Western Conference. The Nuggets’ route to the playoffs would have been very different if they had defeated the Spurs, a team they led by 23 points in the second half of the game. Whatever happened, the Nuggets would have benefited from homecourt advantage for the first three rounds of the playoffs. Instead, they have lost to both the Oklahoma City Thunder and the Minnesota Timberwolves, and they are currently locked in a three-way tie.
Indeed, as of right now, the Nuggets are the third seed. Yes, if all goes as planned, they will play the sixth-seeded New Orleans Pelicans in the first round of the playoffs.
But it’s reasonable to wonder if everything will work out in the end, particularly in light of Denver’s most recent misstep.
The Nuggets’ season finale against the Memphis Grizzlies is set to take place today, and it’s probable that most of their starting lineup will be absent.
The Grizzlies have had an extremely difficult season overall, and things are becoming much worse now. Almost every member of the Memphis Nuggets fan base is among the 13 active players who are now out of action. Right now, their squad is put together using super glue and duct tape, getting ready for the season to conclude. However, that doesn’t mean that Scotty Pippen Jr. or rookie GG Jackson will voluntarily step aside so the Nuggets can win easily.
Without using a single rotation player, the Nuggets will have a chance to win, but it’s unlikely that it will affect their own standings. Both the Thunder and the Timberwolves have chances to win and secure the top two spots.
Both the Thunder and the Timberwolves have a chance to win and secure the top two seeds simultaneously. The Thunder are hosting the Dallas Mavericks, and the Timberwolves are hosting the Phoenix Suns.
The following reasons make it improbable but still possible that the Nuggets will pass either team in the standings:
The Suns, who are attempting to escape the play-in tournament, take on the Timberwolves. They will strive to win by playing Kevin Durant, Devin Booker, Bradley Beal, and the rest of their team, but if the New Orleans Pelicans beat the Los Angeles Lakers, their accomplishments will mean nothing. The Pelicans lead the Suns by one game, and a victory over the Lakers secures the sixth spot and keeps them out of the play-in round.
I wouldn’t put much emphasis on Minnesota losing against Phoenix, but it is a possibility. They have a chance to take the lead in the West for themselves, and it doesn’t seem plausible that they would let that happen.However, it’s only one game, and Denver has already experienced it.
The Thunder, on the off chance that the Timberwolves did lose to the Suns, will go try and get the win over the Mavericks. Dallas is resting the top eight players in their rotation outside of Tim Hardaway Jr., so I’m not expecting miracles here. The Thunder will win, and they will place higher than Denver in the standings.
So, the highest the Nuggets can realistically finish in the standings is the second seed if they win, the Thunder win, and the T’Wolves lose. Is that better than the third seed? Right now, the Nuggets are in line to face the Pelicans in the first round. Moving up to the second seed means waiting for the play-in tournament to figure things out. The current seventh seed? The Phoenix Suns. The current eighth seed? The Los Angeles Lakers.
Everything is still too convoluted to make a firm determination on Denver’s best course of action. Would homecourt advantage in the second round (as the second seed vs the third seed) be better? Sure. Is it necessary? No. Would it help Denver potentially end a series faster? Perhaps.
The first seed is likely the best path, but that involves a win and losses by both the Thunder and Timberwolves. That seems unlikely.
The one final wrinkle in this entire schematic of Western Conference playoffs scenarios involves the three-way tiebreaker. Currently, the Thunder possess said tiebreaker over the T’Wolves and Nuggets. If all three teams win today, the Thunder will be in first place.
However, that’s only if all three teams win. See, if the Nuggets intentionally lose today while the Thunder and T’Wolves still win, Denver would drop below both teams by a game, turning a three-way tie back into a two-way tie. Under that scenario, it would be the T’Wolves that clinch the top spot rather than the Thunder due to a sequence of tiebreakers that come down to conference record.
So, if the Nuggets so desire, they can manipulate the bracket such that they propel either the Thunder or T’Wolves to the top of the standings and out of Denver’s side of the playoff bracket.
If the Nuggets don’t care about whether they get the second or third seed, but they do care which of the T’Wolves or Thunder they see in the second round vs possibly the Conference Finals, they have an opportunity to pick and choose with an intentional loss.
Does that mess with the Basketball Gods? Does that open up a door that a defending champion shouldn’t consider opening? Should the Nuggets be simply okay with playing whoever’s in front of them, or should they try and shift the bracket one way or the other to their choosing?
It’s a tough decision, one that I don’t envy, and one that wouldn’t exist if the Nuggets had taken care of business on Friday.
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