Ranking OKC’s Preferred First Round Playoff Opponents

The Playoffs are rapidly approaching, and the Oklahoma City Thunder could still face as many as nine teams in the first round (assuming they get in). This piece takes a look at who they should want to play in the first round and who they should look to avoid.

With ten games left in the regular season, the OKC Thunder remain in a dog fight to try and snag the best Playoff seed possible. Currently they sit in fourth place in the Western Conference with a 1.5 game lead over the Spurs.

Even with a six-game winning-streak, the Thunder have little breathing room.

The toughest remaining schedule in the league means one bad stretch could not only cost the Thunder home-court in the first round, but also mean an early date with either of the League’s two best teams in Houston and Golden State. If things really take a turn for the worst, they could miss the Playoffs altogether.

With such a tightly contested playoff race featuring eight teams vying for six remaining spots, there is a wide range of possibility in terms of the Thunder’s potential first round opponent. Here is who the Thunder should want to avoid and who they should hope to see in round one.

Note: This list goes from ascending order, meaning the first teams listed are least preferable, while the end of the list features the more preferable teams the OKC Thunder would want to match up with.