I’ve figured it out. I know who is winning the West. I know who is staying home this post-season and I know what seed every team is going to be entering the playoffs. I learned all of this today when I had nothing better to do than play around with Excel and look at standings, schedules, and tie-breaker scenarios for 9 teams in the NBA. What came out of my analysis is how I feel the rest of the season is going to play out for the Jazz and all the rest of the playoff contenders in the Western Conference.

I started by looking at each team’s remaining schedule as of yesterday, Monday, March 17. I then charted those games in Excel and marked who I thought would win each game. The results ended up like this:

To figure out this chart you need to understand a few things:

1) Red Box= Loss. Green Box= Win. ‘Nuff said.
2) A lower case team means its a road game. For example, on the Jazz line (row D) they play their next five games at home - hence every team is CAPITALIZED. Then they play one road game. This is in lower case versus Minnesota.
3) Game dates may not match up by column but games do. For example, the Spurs play Dallas four games from now (E4) but Dallas plays the Spurs three games from now (B3). E4 and B3 are the same game when Dallas plays the Spurs. You’ll notice I have Dallas winning at home in green and the Spurs losing on the road in red.
Don’t look at E1 and F1 and think the Spurs and Rockets are both playing Boston on the same day. It just means they are both playing the Celtics next in their respective schedules.
Luckily, most teams are playing about the same amount of games, so it’s easy to find the same game between two teams on the chart once you understand it. I’ll give you another example. The Jazz play Denver in D12 at home. That same game is on the Nuggets row at I14. Getting it now? This system holds up throughout the chart. Naturally, I don’t ever have a single game being won or loss by both teams.
4) I didn’t take into account back-to-backs or layoffs between games. All I used to determine who I thought would win the game was whether it was a home vs away and how I feel the teams match up.
5) Injuries could obviously blow my whole projections out of the water. That said, I am expecting Pau Gasol to return to the Lakers by the end of next week. They are seriously weak without him - hence a few losses for them up front with clear sailing toward the end of their schedule as they mop up against lesser teams. Nobody else has a significant player returning from injury throughout the remainder of the schedule, unless you count Andrew Bynum, and I don’t. He’ll help them in the playoffs, but even if he came back right now I don’t think he would help improve the Lakers record down the stretch.

I also expect Ray Allen to return to the Celtics soon. If he doesn’t come back next to immediately, some of my Boston wins against the Western teams may be in jeopardy.

Using my chart above to determine how teams will do down the stretch, here’s how the playoff seeds fallout come mid-April:

Check that out! That is an unprecedented race to the playoffs. There are four teams with the same record that places them 2nd-5th in the standings! After I had made my predictions on how each game would play out, I realized that I would now have to spend some time revisiting the NBA rules for playoff seeding tie-breakers. I was tempted to go back and adjust some of my game predictions to save me the time, but couldn’t do it. I really think each game will end up like I have it spelled out above.
To determine who ended up seeds 2-5, I had to go to the league rules. It broke down like this for the Mavs, Hornets, Jazz, and Spurs:

The first tie-breaker is head-to-head matchup. Amazingly, all teams end up at 2-2 head-to-head. I checked this using completed matchups combined with my projections above. For example, the Jazz are 1-1 today against the Spurs. With two games remaining that I project being split (D9, D14), the season series ends up at 2-2. This works out the same for all four teams with a projected record finish of 55-27. Unbelievable.
The second tie-breaker is Division record. Here, the Mavs separate themselves and go from 9-5 today to 11-5 with my projections. That beats out the Hornets at 10-6 using my chart. The Spurs project to 9-7.

After Division record, you go to Conference record. It breaks down leaving the Jazz fourth - behind Dallas and New Orleans, but ahead of San Antonio.

The same Conference record tie-breaker was used to put the Rockets 6th and the Suns 7th as they should also finish 2-2 in heads up play. The Rockets are super-hot now, but I expect them to hit a rough patch starting this week. Having watched them a couple of times over their last few games, I don’t expect them to continue to win at their recent pace. Cool factoid if you hadn’t heard it yet - the Jazz were the last team to beat the Rockets back on January 27.

Golden State falls in at the 8th spot leaving the Nuggets at 9th and goin’ fishin’ instead of a trip to the Playoffs.
Why did I do all of this charting and calculating? I don’t know. I guess I was tired of seeing the Playoff seeds change daily in the West and wanted to figure out how it might actually end up. If I had to put money on it, would I bet on myself being right for every game prediction? Heck no! But I think I will be close. I also think that the Jazz have a great shot at advancing in the playoffs if they get home court advantage in the first round, even against a team like the Spurs.

Regardless of how it all plays out, it’s sure going to be fun to watch. The Playoffs have basically already started. Every game counts for something. NCAA March Madness officially begins on March 20. For the NBA, it started March 1. Enjoy the ride!