| 29 March 2010
Tonight #3 Denver travels to #2 Dallas. Ordinarily a Suns fan would be rooting for both of these teams to lose, but tonight we have to decide which team we'd like to see lose more. It's tempting to jump right away to say we hope Dallas loses. Such an event brings the second seed through the fifth seed Suns into a four way tie in the loss column at 26.
But is that what we really want?
Please Click "Read More" to continue reading--
Let's rather unrealistically pretend Dallas, Denver, Utah, and Phoenix win all the games they have left that are not against each other or against other division leaders throughout the league. This is really unrealistic since Portland, San Antonio, and Oklahoma can win on any given night and appear quite liberally in the end of the season games for each of these teams. Here are the highlights of the rest of the season games for the four teams in question.
Dallas plays Denver, Orlando -- Oklahoma, Portland, San Antonio
Denver plays Dallas, Lakers, Phoenix -- Oklahoma, Portland, San Antonio
Utah plays Lakers, Phoenix -- Oklahoma
Phoenix plays Denver, Utah -- Milwaukee, San Antonio, Oklahoma
Now it's no secret I have been rooting for the Suns to fall into the 2nd or 3rd slot in the west to avoid playing the Lakers until the conference finals. As I said, it's tempting to want Denver to clip Dallas to create that four way tie in the loss column, but I'm going to argue that it's better for us if we root for Dallas to solidify their #2 spot and knock Denver down a peg, allowing the Suns to shoot for the 3rd seed.
First off, Denver is in a slump. Having lost four of their last five (the one win over the Raptors in a buzzer beater) I would not be disappointed to see them slump right into 6th, and this is quite possible since they have the toughest end of the season in this four team group. I like the Suns chances against them. Even more so than I did last week when I said I'd prefer to play Dallas over Denver in the first round. Of course, that was when I was looking for a 6th or 7th seed. If we play them with home field as the third seed, I like our chances a lot.
Anyway, if Denver loses and drops behind the Suns in the loss column, and if the Lakers bump them off as well, the Suns will have some cushion if they happen to lose to them on April 13th. The general point being, if Dallas can put the Nuggets behind us, they have a good chance of staying there, putting us in a good position for the fourth seed.
To take that third seed we have to surpass Utah, who arguably has the easiest end of the season schedule of the four teams. I hate to rely on the Lakers to beat Denver and Utah, especially since the Lakers may feel as though they have the #1 spot wrapped up and not play 100% mentally.
To surpass Utah, we'll almost certainly have to beat them on the last game of the season, April 14th. It will be a tough road to get there. And unfortunately, even if the Suns win that last game, we'll have to hope they don't end up in a tie. As I said last time, a division winner has seeding preference over a non-division winning seed.
Okay, for the final summation. Denver losing tonight puts Phoenix in a position where they really only need to surpass one team, the Utah Jazz. While, Dallas losing creating the four way tie, means the Suns still have to surpass those three other teams to get any improvement in standings. Granted, the increased risk gets us a greater reward, i.e. a two seed versus a three seed, but personally, there isn't that much of a difference between the 2nd and 3rd spots to warrant the extra headache.
I say focus on one thing at a time.
| < Prev | Next > |
|---|
