Less than one week remains in the NBA regular season, but the playoff picture still resembles a dry-erase board.
Some spots are set in stone, sure. The Atlanta Hawks and Golden State Warriors will be the top seeds in the Eastern and Western Conferences, respectively, and the Cleveland Cavaliers are locked into the No. 2 spot in the East.
Beyond that, however, is a whole lot uncertainty.
In the East, the most heated battle comes at the bottom, as the Boston Celtics, Brooklyn Nets, Indiana Pacers and Miami Heat all enter the weekend still in the hunt for the seventh and eighth seeds (the Charlotte Hornets were mathematically eliminated Friday).
The Nos. 3, 4 and 5 spots also are up for grabs, though the Washington Wizards, who were blown out Friday by the Nets, are a long shot to climb up from their current position in fifth.
Occupying the No. 6 spot are the Milwaukee Bucks. That’s where they’re likely to stay, as they hold a two-game lead on both the Celtics and Nets with three games to play.
Now, let’s hop over to the West. The battle for its eighth seed is much more contained but no less intense, as the New Orleans Pelicans and Oklahoma City Thunder enter the weekend with identical 43-36 records. New Orleans owns the tiebreaker — and, thus, the final playoff spot as of Saturday morning — after beating OKC in three of their four meetings this season.
The Dallas Mavericks are locked into the No. 7 spot, but Nos. 2 through 6 all remain undecided.
The Trail Blazers, who are guaranteed a top-four seed after winning the Northwest Division, are all but out of the race for the second and third spots, but the Clippers or Rockets easily could leap up and snag home-court advantage in the first round. Houston took the biggest tumble Friday, falling from second all the way to sixth after losing to San Antonio 104-103.
There’s a fair chance at least a few of these teams could end up tied when the regular season is all said and done, so here’s a quick refresher on the tiebreaker process, courtesy of NBA.com:
Screenshots via ESPN.com
Thumbnail photo via Robert Mayer/USA TODAY Sports Images
