NBA Standings and Draft Lottery review for the Utah Jazz: March 18th, 2015

I can't believe that the NBA Regular Season is going to end in another 30 days. (Yeah, I looked that up.) For teams heading for the NBA Playoffs that means the long slog of the regular season is over. For the teams going to the NBA Draft Lottery, it means that another year in transition is a few lucky bounces away from being the start of a new era. For us Utah Jazz fans, a team that appears to be gate crashing the 10th post in the West, it means a year of waiting. The team isn't bad enough to put a lot of eggs in the lotto basket, but not quite good enough to be fighting for homecourt (or even making) in the playoffs. Yet, we must document what happened last night.

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What Happened Last Night?

Okay, so the Spurs and Grizzlies both lost. The world is full of chaos. And, as the former Mayor of Baltimore tells us, Chaos is a ladder. (Beware, it's a Game of Thrones video, so there are dead tortured people in it, it could be disturbing.) Did anyone take advantage of it last night?

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Western Conference Standings?

The Clippers went up 2 spots over night, as they won and the Spurs lost, while the Mavs were idle. New Orleans and Oklahoma City flip flopped as well because of tie breakers.

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The Race to the Bottom:

So this is where things get a little bit interesting. There were no actual "changes" in standing here, except for the very fun Suns, Bucks, Pelicans, Thunder part of the world. Two of these teams will make the playoffs, the other two will go into the lotto. There are about 15 more games for these teams to figure it out.

Also, between the #7 lotto seed and the #14, well, there's only a 6.5 games separation. You never know when a team, or teams, decide to go "all in" on the tank and just nosedive. Lionel Hollins isn't smart enough to do that. But maybe Steve Clifford is? I don't know. But my money is on another East pretended going the way of Detroit, and going on a long losing streak. Oh, btw, congrats to Detroit who no long have a double digit losing streak by their name.

As for our Jazz, I don't think they have enough tanking juice to make it to the next level, where they'll have a 10-29% of getting a Top 3 pick. With how the team is playing now I think we're all okay with that.

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What Games are happening tonight?

It's a big night in the Association. The Jazz game matters, and we expect Boston to lose to OKC. Utah has a chance to rise in the overall standings, but it's of no great benefit right now.

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For those keeping that candle alive, the Jazz (11) are now 4.0 games behind the Suns (10), and there are 15 games to figure it all out. I hope they catch them.