[Insider Request] The wild, wild Western Conference

If we see as many Western Conference long shots cash in during the playoffs as we might to end the regular season, it's going to be a pretty exhilarating postseason.

Among the many unlikely scenarios coming to fruition, consider these three:

• The Spurs, who held a seven-game lead over the Lakers as recently as two weeks ago, are hanging on to a two-and-a-half-game advantage over L.A., having briefly ceded control-their-own-destiny status to the Lakers this past weekend before grabbing it back on Sunday.

• The Hornets, who led Houston by 10 games in early February, cling to a three-game lead over the Rockets. New Orleans probably will just barely hold off the hard-charging Rockets, even if it loses to Houston on Wednesday -- but only because Dallas is likely to rest its starters against the Hornets on the last day of the season and because the Hornets own the division-record tiebreaker.

With five winnable games left, Houston faces the distinct possibility of going 20-5 after the All-Star break yet missing the playoffs. (It should be noted that Houston also can catch Memphis, against which it owns the tiebreak, but the Grizzlies' torrid play of late makes that scenario highly unlikely.)

• Finally, the Thunder, who entered April with a seemingly impregnable five-game lead over division rival Denver, may nonetheless finish second in the Northwest Division. If so, they can thank an improbable sequence in L.A. this past weekend -- when Oklahoma City lost to the lowly Clippers while the Nuggets left the Staples Center victorious.

The Thunder still lead by three games but play the Nuggets twice this week and would lose the tiebreak with a sweep. They'd still be a game up in the standings but have to go back to L.A. to face the Lakers and have to play a suddenly frisky Kings team in what may be their second-to-last game ever in Sacramento. If the Thunder lose either while the Nuggets run the table, OKC will start the playoffs on the road.

Of these three unlikely developments, the most meaningful is unquestionably the Lakers' second-half charge. Although Sunday's loss to the Nuggets was a setback, the Lake Show is still a giddy 17-2 since the All-Star break and a close second behind Chicago in the Power Rankings; further, L.A. can still wrest the top seed from the Spurs by running the table in its final six games. It won't be easy -- included are visits to Portland and Golden State and an emotional season-ender in Sacramento -- but it's definitely doable given L.A.'s recent excellence.

The improbable feat that made this all possible was San Antonio's recent six-game losing streak, one that probably overemphasized the extent of its woes. All six opponents were playoff teams, and no defeat was by more than 10 points. Nonetheless, the odds of a 60-win-caliber team losing six straight times to average opponents are roughly 1 in 500; even allowing for the superior competition in this particular six-game stretch, it was an extremely unlikely event.

That's especially true when combined with the Lakers' five-game win streak in those same dates. Although obviously more likely than San Antonio's losing skid, the combined probability of both events happening at the same time was about 1 in 2,000.

Which explains how the Playoff Odds could see San Antonio's top seed as a certainty two weeks ago, then drop its chances all the way down to 58.2 percent on Sunday morning. They're back up to 78 percent now -- the Spurs likely will blow it only if they lose in Atlanta on Tuesday and again to the Lakers the next Tuesday while L.A. runs the table -- but it shows that highly improbable events can nonetheless happen and throw a monkey wrench into the playoff seedings.

Yet even with the recent unlikely events, San Antonio still had better odds than the Lakers, and Sunday showed why -- if anything bad happens to L.A., as it did Sunday, it immediately becomes very hard to make up the ground with so little time left.

Nonetheless, we're unexpectedly left with a race in these final days of the season, and moreover, we're left with a clear hierarchy in the West:

Group I: The Lakers.

Group II: The Nuggets.

Group III: Everybody else.

Break it down this way, and another question comes to mind: Should the Lakers even try for the No. 1 seed? It sure seems like the 2-3-6-7 bracket in the West is softer, with a struggling Mavs team that has lost its past seven games against Western Conference playoff teams looming as a second-round foe instead of the scorching Nuggets.

The two highest-rated Western teams in the Power Rankings after the Lakers are Denver and Oklahoma City, who are likely to face off in the 4-5 portion of the bracket. San Antonio would be there, too, if it hadn't taken its foot off the gas.

Let Denver, San Antonio and Oklahoma City wear one another down, the idea goes, and face the one left standing; the only potential harm is if that opponent is San Antonio and the series goes to a seventh game. (Denver, it should be noted, might also be well-served from a tanking strategy should it drop the first of the two games against the Thunder on Tuesday; the danger is that the teams below it are clustered so tightly that it's difficult to fall exactly to the No. 6 position).

Moreover, at this point, one has difficulty seeing a Lakers-Spurs series going the full seven games regardless of home-court advantage, seemingly limiting L.A.'s incentive to push hard for what remains an unlikely goal.

However, there's a greater reason for L.A. to keep chugging along, one that is likely to have far more postseason relevance: home-court advantage in the Finals. Whether it's Chicago, Boston or Miami, the Lakers have to keep winning to assure a Game 7 in the Staples Center -- and we saw how vital that can be a year ago.

Right now, the Bulls have the inside track, as they own the tiebreak with L.A. and are one game up in the standings; however, Chicago has tough games left against Boston, Orlando and the Knicks. Looming two back in the loss column are the Heat, who also own the tie-break with L.A. and can probably run the table if they choose; a home date against Boston on Sunday is the biggest hurdle left.

And then there are the Celtics. L.A. is two games ahead of Boston, and the Celtics still must play the Bulls and Heat, but should the Celtics rally to tie L.A. in the standings and charge to a rematch in the Finals, we'll face the unbelievable prospect of Game 7 being decided by a random drawing: The two tiebreakers for Finals home-court advantage, which I enumerated on Friday, settle nothing.

So regardless of whether the Lakers catch the Spurs, their remaining games have important implications as we look ahead to the postseason. (As do San Antonio's, I should add -- a Spurs-Bulls Finals is another candidate for a "random drawing" seventh game.) It sure didn't seem it would be that way a few weeks ago, when the idea of L.A. being anything greater than the West's No. 3 seed seemed an uphill battle, but it's one of many unlikely events that have placed renewed importance on the regular season's final fortnight.

 

NO will "probably just hold off" Houston:

 

Here is the Link.