The Western Conference playoff race is simply put, ridiculous. If someone were to make a basketball movie circling around a team in the middle of a postseason run, they couldn’t even copy this real-life scenario. People would probably say it’s too fantastical and would never happen in the NBA.
The New Orleans Pelicans entered Saturday one game back from the Utah Jazz for fourth place in the West. Meanwhile, they sat just one game ahead of the Denver Nuggets who were all the way down in ninth place. For those doing the math, that means the fourth place Jazz could miss out on the playoffs despite having just three games left on their schedule.