With all the (much-deserved) hype about the #1-seeded Memphis Tigets, let’s not forget about the Grizzlies.
Check out the standings at Yahoo Sports. Ignore the division standings; those don’t matter much. What you want to look at is the Western Conference standings at the bottom right of the page.
There you’ll see 15 teams listed, ranked in order of winning percentage, except that the division leaders are automatically 1, 2, 3. At the end of the regular season, teams 1-8 go to the playoffs, and teams 9-15 watch the playoffs on TV.
So the Grizzlies’ first goal is to stay in the top 8. We’re number 6 now. So far, so good.
You’d think our next goal would be to move up a spot. I’m not so sure that’s a good idea. The way it works, in the conference playoffs #1 plays #8, #2 plays #7, #3 plays #6, and #4 plays #5. If the rankings remain the same through the end, that would put us up against the #3 Denver Nuggets in the first round, the weakest of the divisional leaders with a .561 winning percentage as of today.
On the other hand, if we move up a spot to #5 we’ll be playing the #4 San Anonio Spurs, who are the best team not to lead a division and have a massive .781 winning percentage. Considering Memphis has never won a playoff game, I think we’d do much better with Denver as our opponent.
You’ll notice that three teams – Detroit, Dallas, and San Antonio – have black x’s by their names. That means that they’ve already qualified for the playoffs. Even if they lose every game for the rest of the season, there’s no way that the #9 team could catch up to their won-loss record. Since only 3.5 games separate us from the #9 team, it will probably be well into April before we see x-Memphis in the rankings.
We’re #6! Let’s go Grizzlies!