limbo wrote:The Pelicans are probably the worst among all the remaining teams in the West, lol, especially if Zion plays 15-20 min. Regardless, they're far too behind to make it anyway.
I mean i never have faith in them but as it stands they have by far the best shot to make it lol. They were 22-15 after that losing streak, had the easiest upcoming schedule compared to everyone else in the race by far, and they have the same losses as portland do right now. 9th seed gets a play in.
Of the 8 remaining games, heres who everyones playing
The blazers play
Mem/Bos/Hou/Den/Lac/76ers/Dal/Bkn
The kings play
Spurs/Mavs/Orl/Nop/Bkn/Hou/Nop/Lal
The spurs play
Kings/Mem/76ers/Den/Uta/Nop/Hou/Uta
Memphis play
Por/Sas/Nop/Uta/Okc/Tor/Bos/Mlk
Meanwhile the pelicans play
Lac/Mem/Sac/Was/Sas/Sac/Orl
Of the 7 remaining games, the pelicans play 1 upper echelon playoff team and everyone else are the guys fighting for a spot (the worst teams in the bubble) they also have the tiebreaker against portland
Everyone else's schedule is stupid brutal in comparison, and since theyre fighting for 9th basically. Blazers dont really have a shot, their schedule is actually stupid, and they dont own the tiebreaker against the kings either (they do against the spurs) and in general itll just be ridiculously hard for them to get it.
The spurs prolly end up making it because the spurs always make it but rhe pelicans technically have the best shot. Theyre half a game back, and 6/7 of their games are against those fighting for a playoff spot.
Nor only that but post zion pelicans were probably the best out of the teams fighting for a spot. They pretty much only lost close games to playoff teams (outside of a loss to minessotta by 5) after his minutes restriction was lifted (Okc, houstan, bucks, lakersx2, dallas) and outside of the bucks all of these games were by single digits. Among their wins in this stretch were against boston, a 29 point win against memphis, 21 and 13 point wins against portland, indiana, and miami. Even the recent loss against utah, zion was on a pretty severe minutes restriction, and his plus minus only sucked because the rebounding was hella weird when he was on the floor (as in every shot bounced back to a utah player) but their offense which stagnated at the end when he wasnt there was pretty cohesive with him.
I dont really see how they are the worst when for the most part they only had single digit losses to mostly strong playoff teams (which for at least 3-4 of the games they choked) and have by far the easiest schedule going forward