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NBA Playoffs and/or Lottery seeding roundup -- While you were sleeping February 25th, 2014

All of the good, bad, and meh things that happened in the races we care about.

By AllThatAmar
Rick Scuteri-USA TODAY Sports

So now that we're tracking both the playoffs (the usual) and the lotto (the new) we have an expanded "While you were sleeping" schedule to track. Here was all the action from last night:

Record Games Lottery Situation Recent Events
Team W L % Ahead Left Conf. Seed Lotto? Owns Pick? Last night Tonight
1 Milwaukee Bucks 11 45 19.6% 0.0 26 East 15 Yes Yes
2 Philadelphia 76ers 15 42 26.3% 3.5 25 East 14 Yes Yes vs ORL
3 Orlando Magic 17 42 28.8% 4.5 23 East 13 Yes Yes @ WAS L @ PHI
4 Boston Celtics 19 39 32.8% 7.0 24 East 12 Yes Yes vs ATL
5 Los Angeles Lakers 19 38 33.3% 7.5 25 West 15 Yes Yes @ IND L @ MEM
6 Sacramento Kings 20 37 35.1% 8.5 25 West 14 Yes Yes vs HOU L
7 Utah Jazz 20 36 35.7% 9.0 26 West 13 Yes Yes vs PHX
8 New York Knicks 21 36 36.8% 9.5 25 East 11 Yes DEN **
9 Cleveland Cavaliers 22 36 37.9% 10.0 24 East 10 Yes Yes vs TOR L @ OKC
10 Detroit Pistons 23 34 40.4% 11.5 25 East 9 Yes Yes @ SAS
11 New Orleans Pelicans 23 33 41.1% 12.0 26 West 12 Yes Yes @ DAL
12 Denver Nuggets 25 31 44.6% 14.0 26 West 11 Yes Yes vs POR L
13 Atlanta Hawks 26 30 46.4% 15.0 26 East 8 Yes vs CHI L @ BOS
14 Charlotte Bobcats 27 30 47.4% 15.5 25 East 7 Yes
15 Brooklyn Nets 26 28 48.1% 16.0 28 East 6 ATL * @ POR
16 Minnesota Timberwolves 28 29 49.1% 16.5 25 West 10 Yes Yes @ PHX W
17 Memphis Grizzlies 31 24 56.4% 20.5 27 West 9 Yes Yes vs LAL
18 Phoenix Suns 33 23 58.9% 22.0 26 West 8 Yes vs MIN L @ UTA
19 Dallas Mavericks 35 23 60.3% 23.0 24 West 7 Yes vs NOP
20 Golden State Warriors 35 22 61.4% 23.5 25 West 6 UTA *** @ CHI
* - ATL has right to swap picks with BKN
** - DEN owns NYK pick
*** -- UTA owns GSW pick

The Good:

  • Nothing good happened last night

The Bad:

  • The Magic (ahead of the Jazz) lost the Wizards
  • The Lakers (ahead of the Jazz) lost to the Pacers, despite being nearly tied at halftime
  • The Kings (ahead of the Jazz) lost to the Rockets, Houston needed a 40+ night from James Harden
  • The Cavaliers (behind the Jazz) lost to the Raptors, and are now 1.0 games from us
  • The Nuggets (behind the Jazz) lost to the Trail Blazers, and are now within 5.0 games
  • The Suns (trying to be ahead of the Warriors) lost to the Timberwolves, are now 1.5 games from the Dubs

The "Meh":

  • The Hawks lost to the Bulls, ATL is now the 8th seed in the East after being up there for a while
  • The Timberwolves winning is nice because we want to put as much pressure on the Dubs as possible, but they beat a team that used to be ahead of the Dubs. Bad form.

Tonight's Action:

  • The Sixers host the Magic in a battle of tankers
  • The Celtics host the Hawks
  • The Lakers are at the Grizzlies
  • The Jazz host the Suns -- we'd screw ourselves TWICE by winning tonight if we care about our lotto pick, and hope for a GSW lotto pick too
  • The Cavs play at the Thunder, so if we win and they lose they'll be tied with us
  • The Pistons play at the Spurs, so they are likely to lose too, and if we win then they'll be 2.0 off of us
  • The Pelicans play at the Mavericks, yeesh, and they are knocking on our door too
  • The Nets play against Portland in their gym, expect an interesting game that doesn't affect us.
  • The Warriors play against the Bulls in Chicago, and Chicago played last night.

It appears as though the teams around us are going to continue losing more games while our coach, his own mortality facing him, tries to scrape as many wins as possible. "Well, you are angry when they lose, and angry when they win!" Not really. The team is "winning" by starting two guys on contract years who are likely to leave the team in Richard Jefferson and Marvin Williams. This is happening while guys in their rookie season like Ian Clark and Rudy Gobert get DNP-CDs. The problem is that we don't have a unified direction -- the teams that are behind us but end up surpassing us do.

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