6 NBA Teams in Biggest Danger of Sliding in the 2015 Playoff Race
With the 2015 NBA playoffs roughly one month away, matchups and seeding figure to become a major storyline over the coming weeks.
The Atlanta Hawks are running away with the Eastern Conference's No. 1 seed, and thanks to the Cleveland Cavaliers' midseason surge, one of the Chicago Bulls, Washington Wizards or Toronto Raptors won't even have home-court advantage for a single round. The battle for the East's final two playoff spots is heating up, too, with five teams perched within striking distance.
In the West, only five games separate the second-seeded Memphis Grizzlies and the seventh-seeded Dallas Mavericks, leaving home-court advantage up for grabs in three first-round matchups. The Western bracket figures to be hard enough as is; entering without home-court in a single round is effectively a death knell to any team's title hopes.
Over the coming weeks, which teams should be worried about sliding down the playoff bracket or tumbling out of the race altogether? Based on current injuries, post-All-Star-break production and remaining strength of schedule, the following six stand out in particular.
Honorable Mention: Toronto Raptors (38-26, 4th in East)
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Since returning from the All-Star break, the Toronto Raptors have been in free fall. They shocked the Atlanta Hawks in their first game after the break, 105-80, but proceeded to lose nine of their next 10 games.
A brutal schedule is partially to blame for their recent malaise, as they've faced just two teams out of the playoff race—the New York Knicks and Philadelphia 76ers—in that span. Losses to the Golden State Warriors, Cleveland Cavaliers and San Antonio Spurs aren't worth fretting over, but the same can't be said about losing to the Knicks or Charlotte Hornets.
Following Toronto's March 8 loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder, general manager Masai Ujiri expressed concern about the team's defense, per CBSSports.com's James Herbert. It's not hard to see why: Since the All-Star break, the Raptors have the league's third-worst defensive efficiency, allowing opponents to score 106.1 points per 100 possessions.
However, the schedule is about to lighten up considerably for Toronto. Just six of the Raptors' final 15 games will be against teams currently on the right side of the playoff picture, with contests against the Knicks, Detroit Pistons, Minnesota Timberwolves (twice), Orlando Magic and Boston Celtics (twice) also on the docket.
As CBSSports.com's Matt Moore tweeted, Toronto's "remaining schedule is melted ice cream." The Raptors figure to finish no worse than the East's No. 4 seed and could easily steal the No. 3 from Chicago over the final weeks of the regular season.
Washington Wizards (36-28, 5th in East)
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Toronto isn't the only would-be Eastern Conference contender that's fallen upon hard times as of late. The Washington Wizards, once seemingly a lock for their first 50-win season in more than three decades, would now need to go 14-4 over their final 18 games to hit that mark.
Before a 95-69 thrashing of the Charlotte Hornets on March 9, the Wizards had dropped 11 straight games against playoff teams and nine straight road tilts, per Jorge Castillo of The Washington Post. They've lost seven of their past 10 games, including five straight coming out of the All-Star break.
The nadir of that stretch unquestionably came during the week of Feb. 21, where Washington dropped back-to-back games against the bottom-feeding Minnesota Timberwolves and Philadelphia 76ers. Though they've played better since that embarrassing loss to Philadelphia, winning three of their past five contests, the Wizards can't afford to grow complacent.
"We got ahead of ourselves a little bit," shooting guard Bradley Beal said Wednesday, per Castillo. "We thought we were a great team and we weren't."
Schedule-wise, the Wizards don't get much of a reprieve over the final weeks of the season, as just seven of their last 18 games come against non-playoff teams. They won't fall out of the playoff race entirely, but they face an uphill battle for a top-four seed and the resulting first-round home-court advantage.
Miami Heat (29-35, 8th in East)
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Outside of the Oklahoma City Thunder, the Miami Heat may be the league's most snakebit team this year. Chris Bosh and Josh McRoberts are out for the season, while just about every other key rotation member is day-to-day with some sort of injury.
Goran Dragic, Luol Deng, Dwyane Wade, Chris Andersen and Udonis Haslem are all gutting through their respective ailments, but losing any one of them for an extended period of time could prove fatal to Miami's postseason hopes. The team currently holds just a half-game edge over the Charlotte Hornets for the East's final playoff spot, while the surging Boston Celtics are only 1.5 games behind Miami, too.
Making matters worse: The Heat's remaining schedule is absolutely brutal, as only six of their final 18 contests come against teams a game or more out of the playoffs. Meanwhile, they still have two dates with the Cleveland Cavaliers and tilts against the Oklahoma City Thunder, Atlanta Hawks, San Antonio Spurs and Chicago Bulls left, too.
The one silver lining for Miami is that its final two games come against the Orlando Magic and Philadelphia 76ers, which could help a late-season push up the standings. However, given the strength of the Heat's schedule until that point, they could find themselves too far out of the playoff race for those two contests to be of consequence.
If Hassan Whiteside can refrain from any more knuckleheadedness—namely, no more getting suspended for flagrant-2 fouls—the Heat have the talent to stave off Boston and Charlotte. Their margin of error is terrifyingly thin right now, though, especially with so many key contributors dealing with a litany of minor ailments.
Brooklyn Nets (25-38, 11th in East)
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Can someone remind the Brooklyn Nets there's no benefit to tanking this season? The Atlanta Hawks can (and will) swap first-round draft picks with them in June, so they're only helping the rich get richer by imploding.
After winning their first two games out of the All-Star break—albeit against the Los Angeles Lakers and Denver Nuggets—the Nets proceeded to drop seven of their next nine contests, falling 3.5 games behind Miami for the East's final playoff spot. During that stretch, they've toppled the Dallas Mavericks and Golden State Warriors but dropped games to the Heat, Hornets and New Orleans Pelicans (twice).
Brooklyn owns the league's fourth-worst defensive rating since the All-Star break, coughing up an abysmal 105.3 points per 100 possessions. The Nets also have the league's worst assist percentage (50.2) over that stretch, which speaks to the team's recent dysfunction on both sides of the ball.
"The Nets still have no answers for their struggles," The Brooklyn Game's Sean Flattery wrote in his preview of Brooklyn's March 11 game against Miami. "Head coach Lionel Hollins has tried different lineups, rotations, and strategies but the play on the court has not been consistent." (The Nets proceeded to lose, 104-98.)
Aside from two tilts against the Cleveland Cavaliers, Brooklyn's rest-of-March schedule features a number of winnable games, which could help the team close ground on Boston, Charlotte and Miami. That will all come crashing down in April, as seven of the Nets' final eight games come against playoff teams, including two dates with the Hawks over a five-day span.
Portland Trail Blazers (42-20, 3rd in West)
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On March 5, the Portland Trail Blazers' title chances suffered a likely deathblow. Swingman Wesley Matthews tore his left Achilles tendon during a game against the Dallas Mavericks, bringing an unfortunate and abrupt end to his season.
CBSSports.com's Matt Moore summed up how Matthews' injury affects Portland:
"If one of their key offensive players goes into a shooting slump, the offense may not be able to sustain. Matthews' comfort in the system goes a long way, and the depth they had meant that the top seven rotation could always be fresh. That won't be the case anymore. Still, provided the Blazers can avoid any more significant injuries beyond Matthews and LaMarcus Aldridge's torn hand tendon (knock on wood), Portland at least has the capability to handle this unfortunate circumstance and not fall apart.
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At the trade deadline, the Blazers fortuitously acquired Denver Nuggets swingman Arron Afflalo, who has rather seamlessly slid into Matthews' starting 2 spot. However, moving him into the starting lineup once again leaves Portland's bench paper thin, reducing the team's margin for error over the coming weeks.
The Blazers did pick up a major 105-100 win over the Houston Rockets on Wednesday, vaulting themselves over Houston into the West's No. 3 seed. However, Portland's reserves contributed just 23 of those 105 points, further underscoring how another injury to a starter could prove too much to overcome.
With an eight-game lead over the Oklahoma City Thunder in the Northwest Division, the Blazers are a virtual lock to snag a top-four seed, especially with 11 of their final 20 contests coming against non-playoff teams. However, they could struggle to fend off the Los Angeles Clippers, San Antonio Spurs and Dallas Mavericks in terms of regular-season records, which would cost them first-round home-court advantage.
Dallas Mavericks (41-25, 7th in West)
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Fresh off a 33-point loss to the Cleveland Cavaliers on March 10, the Dallas Mavericks aren't feeling great about themselves at the moment.
Amar'e Stoudemire, who joined the Mavericks after agreeing to a buyout with the New York Knicks, lit into his teammates following the blowout, per ESPNDallas.com's Tim McMahon:
"I came here to win, and we're [4 ½] games out of being out of the playoffs, which is unacceptable. This is something we can't accept. We've got to find a way to refocus. We've got to key into the details of the game of basketball.
We can't cheat the game. We can't screw around in shootarounds and practices and joke around all the time and figure we're going to win games. This is the pros. It's the highest level of basketball. We've got to act that way.
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The next day, head coach Rick Carlisle echoed Stoudemire's comments, telling reporters, "I agree that we have some looseness that we've got to get fixed… We got to eliminate it as a problem." Mavericks center Tyson Chandler, meanwhile, tried to put a positive spin on the thrashing, saying, "Sometimes you need to get smacked the way to wake you up and say, you're not what you think you are."
Dallas won three of its first four post-All-Star-break contests but proceeded to drop five of its next seven, including the aforementioned Cleveland debacle. The Mavs have the league's fifth-worst offensive rating since the break, and with 10 of their final 16 contests coming against teams within a game of the playoffs, they'll need to straighten out their offensive woes quickly to avoid falling further in the West bracket.
Phoenix Suns (34-32, 10th in West)
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The Phoenix Suns likely sealed their playoff fate at the trade deadline. Shipping out point guards Goran Dragic, Isaiah Thomas and Tyler Ennis left them perilously thin on ball-handlers outside of Eric Bledsoe and the newly acquired Brandon Knight.
That lack of depth reared its ugly head Monday, as Knight suffered an ugly ankle sprain in a 98-80 loss to the Golden State Warriors. He attended practice on crutches Tuesday, per Paul Doro of The Arizona Republic, and still doesn't have a timetable to return, according to Craig Grialou of ArizonaSports.com.
"You never know, sometimes these things go quick, sometimes they take a while. I don't want to put a timetable on it," Knight told reporters Tuesday, per Grialou. "I just want to just keep working on it every day and see where we end up."
The Suns survived sans Knight against the Minnesota Timberwolves Wednesday night, pulling out a 106-97 victory, but their schedule is unforgiving over the coming weeks. They'll face just three non-playoff teams over their remaining nine games in March, then have road tilts against the Golden State Warriors, Atlanta Hawks and Dallas Mavericks in early April.
At the moment, Phoenix is just 2.5 games behind the New Orleans Pelicans for the West's final playoff spot. However, given Knight's lack of a timetable to return and a brutal upcoming schedule, it's difficult to imagine the Suns keeping pace with the Pelicans and Oklahoma City Thunder for the No. 8 seed.
All statistics and records via NBA.com and are current through Wednesday, March 11.
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