As the 2016-17 season winds down, the race for the 8 seed in the playoffs continues to heat up.
The Denver Nuggets and Portland Trail Blazers are the heavy favorites right now, but the race is truly down to four teams: Denver, Portland, the Dallas Mavericks, and the New Orleans Pelicans. Here’s the current playoff picture as of Wednesday morning:
The Nuggets are currently the leaders, and their magic number to make the playoffs is 12. A magic number consists of the combined number of wins by Denver and the losses by the next closest team, in this case Portland.