Following Games On 8 August
The Phoenix Suns are the only unbeaten team in the restart as they beat Miami 119-112 on Saturday behind 35 points from Devin Booker to improve to 5-0 in Orlando and move within a half game of Portland for ninth place in the race for the play-in in the Western Conference.
The Suns take over the 10th spot in the standings from idle San Antonio despite both being two games back of the Grizzlies and 0.5 games back of Portland. At 31-39, the Suns have a win percentage of 0.443, just 0.02 ahead of the 30-38 Spurs. These small win percentage advantages due to teams having played a different total number of games could come into play to determine who gets into the play-in.
The Blazers took a tough loss to the Clippers on Saturday as they fell 1.5 games behind Memphis and saw their lead for the ninth spot shrink to just a half game over Phoenix and San Antonio, and a full game over New Orleans. Damian Lillard came up empty on a pair of free throws that could have given Portland the lead with 18 seconds left and his pull-up 3-point attempt with nine seconds left would have tied it, but came up just short.
All six teams in contention for the final playoff berth in the West have now played five of their eight seeding games. Four of those teams will be in action on Sunday, including the final head-to-head matchup between the Spurs and Pelicans. Sitting in 12th place, every game is a must-win for the Pelicans at this point, and a loss to San Antonio would all but end New Orleans’ play-in hopes.
A win by Memphis on Sunday essentially guarantees that they will finish in either the eighth or ninth spot regardless of how their final two games play out. If Memphis beats Toronto on Sunday, they would improve to 34-37 and their worst possible final record would be 34-39 (0.466 win percentage).
If Phoenix were to win out, they would also finish at 34-39, but Memphis owns the head-to-head tie breaker and the better conference record tiebreaker (20-26 with no more conference games, compared to a best-case scenario conference record of 19-27 for Phoenix).
If San Antonio were to win out, they would finish 33-38 for a win percentage of 0.465, which falls short of Memphis. While the Suns and Spurs would still have a chance to catch Portland for the No. 9 spot in the play-in, they would not be able to catch Memphis.
Portland still has a shot at the No. 8 seed, but will need some help from the top three teams in the Eastern Conference as the Grizzlies close out the season with Toronto, Boston and Milwaukee. The Blazers needs the Grizzlies to lose at least two of those games in order to have a chance at the No. 8 seed.
