The Minnesota Timberwolves still control their own destiny
Despite their injury troubles, Anthony Edwards has not only kept the Wolves competitive but they have continued to win at rather high rates, going 6-3 during Towns' nine-game absence.
What's even more notable about this streak is that four of those wins have come against current playoff teams.
The T-Wolves have two division games remaining on their schedule, against Denver on March 29, and then once again against the reigning champions on April 10.
Because both of these games are in Denver this will give the Nuggets an added advantage as the Nuggets currently possess the second-best home record in the association at 29-6, behind only the league-leading Boston Celtics who are 32-3 at home.
If the Wolves lose just one of their two games versus the Nuggets, they will fall into a tie in their division record race with the Thunder with four losses each.
The next tiebreaker is conference record, which is something Oklahoma City and Denver are currently tied at 15 losses each, whereas the Wolves only have 12 conference losses.
Should the Thunder and Minessota be forced to go to the third tiebreak, the former will have only six conference games remaining, whereas the latter also has six conference games remaining.
This is going to be one of the tighter seeding races in recent memory, but, regardless of how things shake out, the Thunder have all but clinched at least hosting a first-round playoff series, which has only happened once during the post-Kevin Durant era for the franchise. This position Oklahoma City is in should not be taken for granted because it is hard to get to where they are.