The Dallas Mavericks got 36 points out of Tim Hardaway Jr, who nailed ten three-pointers in a 127-113 win over Miami on Tuesday night. The Heat jumped out to a 39-30 lead after the first quarter, but then the Mavericks turned on the defense and only permitted 38 points over the next two quarters. The Mavericks are now in fifth place in the Western Conference standings, holding the tiebreaker over the L.A. Lakers. In the East, the Milwaukee Bucks beat the Brooklyn Nets at home, 124-118, serving notice that they still have their sights on winning the top seed.
Let’s take a look at the updated standings and some thoughts about how this could affect your NBA betting.
NBA News: Playoff Update
Play-In Thoughts
Here are the teams ranked 1-12 in the East, with wins, losses, games remaining and games out of first.
Place Team W L GR GB
1 Philadelphia* 44 21 7 –
2 Brooklyn* 43 23 6 1 ½
3 Milwaukee** 41 24 7 3
4 New York 37 28 7 7
5 Atlanta 36 30 6 8 ½
6 Miami 35 31 6 9 ½
7 Boston 34 31 7 10
8 Charlotte 32 33 7 12
9 Indiana 30 34 8 13 ½
10 Washington 30 35 7 14
11 Toronto 27 39 6 17 ½
12 Chicago 26 39 7 18
* clinched playoff spot
** clinched division title
Teams in the 7-10 slots go into a play-in; the 7th place team hosts the 8th place team in a play-in game, and the 9th place team hosts the 10th place team. The 7-8 winner gets the 7-seed in the playoffs. The 9-10 winner plays the 7-8 loser for the 8-seed. In both cases, those are one-game play-ins.
Philadelphia, Brooklyn and Milwaukee have pulled away from the rest of the East, with New York sitting four games out of third with seven games left on their schedule. The 76ers have won five in a row to pull back ahead of Brooklyn, and the reward for the top seed is that the winner would only have to face one of the other two teams to get out of the East, while the 2- and 3-seeds would potentially play each other and then the 1-seed just to get to the NBA Finals, a much tougher path. Philadelphia does not score quite as much as the other two teams, but their point differential (+5.4) is better than Brooklyn’s (+4.2). Also, the Nets have dropped three straight games, and given the hamstring issues that KD and James Harden have faced — and the games Kyrie Irving has missed for personal issues this season — there are some questions hanging over the Nets. Philadelphia looks like the most complete team of the three, with more solid defense than the other two teams.
Now let’s look at the West:
Place Team W L GR GB
1 Phoenix* 47 18 7 –
2 Utah* 47 18 7 –
3 L.A. Clippers 44 22 6 3 ½
4 Denver 43 22 7 4
5 Dallas 37 28 7 10
6 L.A. Lakers 37 28 7 10
7 Portland 36 29 7 11
8 Golden State 33 33 6 14 ½
9 Memphis 32 32 8 14 ½
10 San Antonio 31 33 8 15 ½
11 New Orleans 30 36 6 17 ½
12 Sacramento 28 37 7 19
The biggest movement right now could come in the middle. Here are the remaining games for Dallas, the Lakers and Portland:
Dallas: BKN, CLE, @CLE, @MEM, NO, TOR, @MIN
The Lakers: @LAC, @POR, PHX, NY, HOU, @IND, @NO
Portland: @CLE, LAL, SA, HOU, @UTAH, @PHX, DEN
Of these three teams, Dallas has the easiest remaining schedule, but they have also struggled to beat teams that are lower down the standings. On Monday, I wrote that I liked the Spurs to come out of the play-in tournament, but now that their losing streak has hit four games, they will have their hands full just keeping the Pelicans from passing them for the #10 slot. Golden State got 93 three-pointers out of Stephen Curry in the month of April, but the Warriors just went 8-7 in that month. They need better team play if they plan to stay in that 8-slot and have two chances at the playoffs.
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