OKC Thunder: Analyzing stretch run schedules with view to seeding

The wild west continues to fluctuate daily with the OKC Thunder moving up and down like a piston.

Despite a terrible 24 seconds in Boston on Tuesday the OKC Thunder clung to the fourth seed. That was until the New Orleans Pelicans vaulted past them Thursday. Entering the match versus the Heat Friday, the Thunder sat in fifth. By night end, they were back in fourth with the home court seed.

Such is life in the Western Conference where in the course of a few games teams can plummet from home court positioning to off the board altogether.

Just ask the San Antonio Spurs who recently fell to 10th, refocused, won a few games in a row to momentarily sit in fourth before settling into the middle of the ladder.

For fans of teams vying for the coveted three through eight western seeds it’s a daily event to scoreboard watch.  Even on idle days the results can dramatically shift.

This column offers a deep dive examining remaining schedules for each of the 10 west teams and eight east teams with a view to how those games may affect where they land. Further, it examines where some teams might prefer to land versus where they’ll likely end up.

Busy weekend:

Every team still eligible to land a Western Conference seed was in action Friday except the Rockets and Pelicans. New Orleans was coming off playing the rare back-to-back-to back due to a rescheduled game with Indiana. The fact the Pelicans swept these games is why the Thunder fell to fifth after Thursday action.

One night later, the first round pairing would remain the same if playoffs began at that moment, with the home court back in OKC’s favor. This is how things will be every day from now until season end.

Lost Opportunities:

OKC could have avoided this dip down the ladder had they won the game in Boston, proving how costly that loss was. Heck, OKC could’ve sewn this situation up long ago if only they had beat the lottery teams, or limited their losses to those clubs (11).

As for the other squads in the race, most are pushing the outside of the envelope as they maneuver to stay on the playoff ladder and above the final two rungs. (And, even one of those rungs isn’t quite as scary as it was just 48 hours ago.)

Denver and LA have dropped into the ninth and tenth seeds and barring one of the West teams suddenly imploding that’s likely where they’ll remain. If you recall that was precisely where I envisioned them finishing the season.

Still, the Clippers and Nuggets aren’t throwing in the towel, delivering desperate winning efforts this past weekend.