Adjust your plans accordingly. There are just five game dates left in the NBA regular season.
For the LA Clippers, who sit 50-28 and fourth in the Western Conference, just four games remain. A home-and-home with the Phoenix Suns begins Tuesday night in Arizona before the Suns come to Los Angeles on Wednesday night in what will be the Clippers’ fifth game in seven days. The Clippers will play their last prime-time home game Friday against a cooked Utah Jazz team, and then they will finish the season at 12:30 p.m. (PT) Sunday against the eliminated Houston Rockets at home.
Kawhi Leonard will miss his fifth straight game due to right knee inflammation, and while the Clippers remain unconcerned about his status overall, team sources maintain that they will not rush him back.
James Harden will play Tuesday night, but the Clippers downgraded him to questionable before Sunday afternoon’s comeback win against the Cleveland Cavaliers, a game in which Harden did not play in the fourth quarter. Russell Westbrook could start at least one of the final games in Harden’s place when the Clippers can reach a clinching status.
Paul George has already said that he hopes the Clippers clinch their playoff spot before Sunday’s season finale, saying “I don’t need to be in that one.”
Here is what to watch for as the final week of the season gets underway.
You can buy tickets to every NBA game here.
Chances of being in top three?
After the first weekend following the All-Star break, I posted that the Clippers would need at least 19 more wins to have a chance to be the No. 3-seeded team or better. The Clippers can’t reach that mark now.
The most wins the Clippers can get to is 54. The Minnesota Timberwolves and Denver Nuggets both have 54-24 records and meet each other in Denver on the second night of a back-to-back Wednesday. Even if the Timberwolves (hosting the woebegone Washington Wizards) and Nuggets (visiting Utah, losers of 12 straight games) both somehow lose Tuesday night, one of them will win Wednesday to mathematically eliminate the Clippers from the top seed.
Now, because the Clippers beat the Nuggets last week, they gave themselves a chance to still tie Denver in the standings. The Clippers lost the tiebreaker to the Timberwolves 3-1 this regular season (the 22-point blown lead hurts here), so they can’t catch the Timberwolves. For the Clippers to be the No.2-seeded team, the next three things would have to happen:
If the Clippers, Nuggets and Thunder were all 54-28 at the end of the season, then the Timberwolves would be No. 1 and the Clippers would be No. 2 on the strength of being the Pacific Division winner. The Clippers and Nuggets tying at 54-28 while the Thunder lose each of their last four games would favor the Clippers on the same division title tiebreaker.
The Clippers lost the regular-season tiebreaker to the Oklahoma City Thunder 2-1. The Clippers could be No. 3 if they win their last four games and one of these two things happen:
- The Thunder win at least two games and the Nuggets lose the last four games.
OR - The Nuggets win at least one game and the Thunder lose their last four games.
Again, the chances of all of these things happening are quite unrealistic, especially with Jamal Murray back for the Nuggets after being out for 15 days due to right knee inflammation and All-Star Shai Gilgeous-Alexander returning to the Thunder after being out for eight days due to a quad injury.
Clippers likely missing Play-In Tournament
Since Feb. 25, the Clippers have been fourth in the West every night except one, when they briefly slipped to No. 5 on March 25. Since then, the Clippers are 6-1 and the New Orleans Pelicans are 2-5.
The Sacramento Kings (45-33), Los Angeles Lakers (45-34) and Golden State Warriors (43-35) will at least be in the Play-In Tournament, but they cannot pass the Clippers in the standings. The only way the Suns and Pelicans (both 46-32) can pass the Clippers is if they win out and the Clippers lose…
This article was originally published by a theathletic.com . Read the Original article here. .