Wild Wild West, Jim West, desperado, rough rider, no you don’t want nada.The commercial success, but critical flop, that was Will Smith’s 1999 film “Wild Wild West” can’t begin to compare to the wildness of three of tonight’s NBA Western Conference games.The Hornets play the Spurs, the Trail Blazers take on the Nuggets and the Mavericks face the Rockets in three games that will a have pretty significant impact on the Western Conference playoff picture.This is almost as exciting as when that awful film ended — almost.The three matchups won’t have an impact on who’s in the playoffs, since all eight spots in the conference have already been decided. The games will affect seeding and home-court advantage.Denver clinched the Northwest Division and home-court advantage throughout much of the playoffs when the Nuggets downed the Sacramento Kings on Monday. Denver sits at No. 2 in the West with a 54-27 record.Houston, Portland and San Antonio are No. 3, No. 4 and No. 5, respectively, and all have a 53-28 record. New Orleans and Dallas are occupying the No. 6 and No. 7 spaces with identical 49-32 records.I guess this is why people care about NBA basketball earlier in the season as much as they do. This stuff is important, and this just proves that every game matters.The six teams will have the full attention of everyone who cares about the NBA playoffs when they step on the floor tonight — and rightly so.If teams come out and lose, they’re not only screwing themselves over, but they could be screwing over multiple other teams in the process.Take the Rockets for instance.If they win one more game, they not only clinch the Southwest Division, but the No. 2 seed in the playoffs and home-court advantage in at least the first two rounds.If they lose, it opens the door for the Mavericks to sneak into the No. 6 spot in the conference above the Hornets and face whoever the No. 3 seed will be when the dust settles.There are so many playoff scenarios that could take place depending on tonight’s outcomes.And I don’t even want to get into all the hypotheticals that could happen.I just tried, and it gave me a headache.But since most of my audience probably loves the Hornets, I’ll talk about them, even though they’re likely to see an early exit from the postseason. New Orleans could potentially play Denver, Houston, Portland or San Antonio in the first round.New Orleans most likely wouldn’t want to play Portland in the first round.If Brandon Roy can be contained, the Trail Blazers can be beat, but that’s the issue — Roy can’t be stopped.He’s a large portion of the team, averaging 23 points, five rebounds, five assists and one steal with a 2.6:1 assist-to-turnover ratio. The teams have split the four games they’ve played this season, and Roy didn’t even play in one of Portland’s losses.The Hornets probably don’t want any part of the Rockets again. Houston made them look silly Monday and held New Orleans to fewer than 70 points. Overall, the Rockets hold a 3-1 advantage against the Hornets. The Nuggets probably wouldn’t be favorable for the Hornets either.The teams split the four games they’ve played this season, but I’d give an edge to Denver since they’ve got the home-court advantage and have dropped only eight games at the Pepsi Center this season.Plus, Chauncey Billups would school Chris Paul. The only series I can see the Hornets winning is if they drew the Spurs.That team is not any good without Manu Ginobili.No matter who San Antonio plays, a sweep is a very strong possibility.All these scenarios are just one team’s projected playoff matchups. The other five teams in this bottleneck don’t know for sure who they’ll be playing either.It’s the race before the race.Too bad none of it will matter when the Lakers win the NBA Championship in June.But for now, this wild, wild west race is the best thing going on in sports.Wiki wiki wild.–Contact Johanathan Brooks at [email protected]
The 6th Man: NBA Western Conference games are ‘wild wild’ races
April 13, 2009