At this point, it's highly unlikely the Oklahoma City Thunder are surpassed for the first seed in the Western Conference.
Although the San Antonio Spurs hold the tie-breaker, they still sit three games back of Oklahoma City. All the Thunder need to do is secure one more win, which could easily come tonight against the Los Angeles Clippers, and they will have secured the top spot in the West for the third straight season.
By all metrics, they are the most formidable team in the league heading into the playoffs.
That doesn't mean they can just cast away all anxiety surrounding San Antonio, however. The Spurs are 4-1 against the Thunder this season. Although Oklahoma City wasn't at full strength for all of those matchups, San Antonio has clearly shown an ability to exploit certain weaknesses in the Thunder's game.
But a recent development from the Spurs should be even more terrifying than that head-to-head record. Since March 1, San Antonio has the best offensive rating in the NBA. If this trend holds, they could truly be a force to reckon with in the playoffs.
The Spurs are quickly becoming a greater championship threat than most of the league acknowledges
The Spurs, to their credit, are leaps and bounds ahead of where many expected them to be this season. They hold a 60-19 record with just three games left in their schedule.
The biggest contributor to their success, their defensive connectivity with Victor Wembanyama at the helm, is not all that surprising. They hold the league's third-best defensive rating over the course of the whole season. Wembanyama holds the best defensive estimated plus-minus in the NBA, per Dunks & Threes.
But the concern with them was always whether their offense, led by so many young pieces, would hold up in a playoff atmosphere. Between the start of the season and the trade deadline, they were respectable on that end of the court, posting the 11th-best offensive rating in the NBA in that span.
As we approach the playoffs, however, they've become absolutely formidable. Their offensive structure depends upon the ability of their young guards, primarily Stephon Castle and Dylan Harper, to achieve interior penetration and collapse opposing defenses. Those two players have continued to do that on a nightly basis, but their 3-point shooting has leveled up over the course of the season.
Since March 1, San Antonio is shooting 37.7% from 3-point range as a team. In that span, Stephon Castle is shooting 41.8% from beyond the arc. Dylan Harper is shooting 55.8%.
There's some volatility that must be acknowledged there. But if the Spurs enter the playoffs this hot offensively, there's a strong chance they can handle whatever teams they run up against in the first and second round.
With a hypothetical Western Conference Finals matchup looming, the Thunder have no choice but to be alarmed.