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This is it, Utah Jazz fans. Our guys have climbed that mountain and are going to be in the 2017 NBA Playoffs. But they still have a chance to make their own destiny with who they end up facing in the first round. The Jazz can into Playoffs, but that #PlayoffPush is still going on as there are only 7 more nights in the 2016-2017 NBA Regular season. There were a bunch of games last night, and a bunch more tonight. So let’s look at what happened “While you were sleeping,” on April 5th:
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The GSW clinched 1st place in the West with their win and SAS loss. Expect both to coast from here on out.
GOOD NEWS!
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- [1] Golden State Warriors beat the [15] Phoenix Suns, 120-111: Stephen Curry had 42 points, Klay Thompson dropped 22, that’s basically it.
- [2] San Antonio Spurs lost to the [14] Los Angeles Lakers, 102-95: Tyler Ennis had 19 points as Pop plays his non-resting rotation players between 14-18 minutes each.
The GSW win is good because it keeps them ahead of SAS. The SAS loss ensures that will be the case as there’s no way for SAS to catch GSW. As a result both teams do not need to care about wins anymore this regular season and will be resting players all the rest of the way. Gregg Popovich has already been doing that, but expect to see more of it. This benefits UTA because UTA has to play @GSW and vsSAS one more time this season. Furthermore, the GSW win and SAS loss also has ripples all the way down to the bottom of the conference. It keeps PHX with more ping pong balls than LAL. And screw LAL!
“Meh” NEWS!
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- [3] Houston Rockets defeated the [9] Denver Nuggets, 110-104: Nikola Jokic’s 12/19/9/5/1 game really not enough to deal with James Harden’s 31/7/10/1/3.
We were only “rooting” for DEN in their fight for the 8th against POR with the hope that DEN knocked POR out of the playoffs a week or two ago. That would have put POR in tank mode. That’s not the case. POR isn’t in tank mode, and DEN didn’t do jack. The desire was a tank mode POR because they played UTA twice in April. They played on Tuesday (UTA win) and will play again on Saturday (in POR). “Rooting” for DEN is no longer something to do. So this is Meh all around. HOU winning has no consequence because they can’t catch [2] SAS or fall down to [4] UTA in the standings.
BAD NEWS!
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- [5] Los Angeles Clippers beat the [11] Dallas Mavericks, 112-101: Blake Griffin nets 32, DeAndre Jordan has a 11/20 game, and J.J. Redick swishes in 25. This is not an easy match-up in any possible way.
- [6] Oklahoma City Thunder defeated the [7] Memphis Grizzlies, 103-100: Russell Westbrook wins another game by himself with his 45 points, 9 rebounds, 10 assists, 5 steals, 8 three pointers, 12 free throw attempts, and 7 turn overs.
This one is easy, LAC winning is bad because they are now only 0.5 games behind UTA. OKC winning is bad because they could still catch UTA, and because they own the tie-breaker, win the division. MEM is too far down to matter anymore, and DAL doesn’t matter at all. So this was a bad night as a result.
Tonight’s Games:
- [8] Portland Trail Blazers vs. [12] Minnesota Timberwolves: Get tired!
There’s only one game tonight, and it doesn’t matter - except for the fact that UTA plays MIN Friday night and POR on Saturday. So the more tired these two teams get the better.