NBA Update: Eastern Conference Mid-Table Tight
March 19, 2016 | Sports,
By: Eric Graves
As the 2015-16 NBA season winds down, with each team with just around 15 games remaining in the regular season, the playoff race is tightening, especially with those outside of the top 8 in their conference.
Warriors and Spurs continue to assert their dominance atop not only the West, but also the NBA. The Warriors need to go 12-3 in their last 15 games to beat the 95-96 Bulls’ NBA best record of 72-10. The Thunder are in control of the 3 seed in the West right now; after a rough stretch they got back on track this past wednesday with a dominant win over the Celtics, 130-109. The 4th seeded Clippers still await the return of one of their all stars, Blake Griffin, and will be waiting until early April. The race for the 8th, 7th and 6th seed is between the Trail Blazers, Mavericks, Rockets and Jazz who are all within at least 2.5 games of each other
Lebron and his Cavs hold a narrow 2.5 game lead over the Raptors at the top of the East. The Heat have the 3 seed but are nowhere close to overtaking either of the top teams, trailing the Cavs by 9 games. The race for the 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th seeds, positions currently held by the Heat, Hawks, Celtics and Hornets respectively. All 4 of these teams are with at least a game of each other. The race for the final seed comes down to the Pistons and the Bulls. The Pistons hold the tiebreaker which is why they’re in the 8th seed right now with both teams at .500. One of these teams is going to need to get it going to jump into that last spot in the East.
With playoffs just under a month away it will be interesting to see where different teams land in the seeding and what matchups we will see come April.