Third seed very much in reach for surging Utah Jazz

Although it was almost unthinkable months ago, the Utah Jazz have put themselves in a realistic situation to nab third place in the West.

A few months ago, a playoff spot looked unlikely. Mere weeks ago, a postseason bid was more likely, but home court advantage seemed like a long-shot. Now, with three games remaining in the regular season, all of a sudden the Utah Jazz have not only a realistic shot at home court advantage, but a chance to finish in third place in an insanely crowded Western Conference.

Winners of 27 of their last 32 games, there’s simply no disputing how impressive the Jazz have been in the latter part of the season. Thanks largely to consistently amazing play by rookie Donovan Mitchell, massive strides by Ricky Rubio and the healthy return of Rudy Gobert, Utah has surged up the standings to now find themselves in fourth place in the Western Conference with a record of 46-33 and a full-game lead over the fourth place San Antonio Spurs.

Oddly enough, even that hasn’t been enough for the Jazz to clinch a playoff berth, meaning that if the perfect storm occurs in the final six days of the NBA regular season, they could potentially fall out of the playoffs entirely.

But let’s not focus on the negative, shall we? Especially with how well the Jazz have been playing of late, emphasized by monumental wins over both the Minnesota Timberwolves (by 24 points) and the LA Clippers (by 22 points), it’s almost hard to fathom a scenario where Utah doesn’t find a way to get into the playoffs. They can clinch a spot by defeating the Los Angeles Lakers at the Staples Center on Sunday.

And not only that, but Utah has suddenly put themselves in a great situation to have a shot at nabbing the third seed. Currently, the Portland Trail Blazers, who have been exceptional since the All-Star break as well, find themselves in that spot with a two-game lead over the Jazz. However, largely due to an ankle injury sustained by Damian Lillard, all of the sudden the Blazers have dropped two straight contests. They’re also just 5-5 in their last 10.

Not only that, but the road ahead is far from easy for the Blazers, as they’ll visit the San Antonio Spurs and Denver Nuggets, who, as they proved Thursday night in an epic win over Minnesota, are desperately fighting for the final playoff spot, then wrap up the season at home against none other than the Utah Jazz.

No matter what happens in the two games before that contest for either team, the only possible way for the Jazz to get the third seed is to win that final game against Portland. Of course, if Portland wins both games against the Spurs and Nuggets, then they’ll clinch the third seed regardless, or if the Blazers win one of those two while Utah loses to either the Lakers or the Golden State Warriors, third place will also be out of reach.

To put it simply, with three games remaining, the maximum number of wins the Jazz can get is 49. If they end up tied with the Blazers at 49-33, Utah will have the tiebreaker because it will mean that they defeated Portland in the final game to win the regular season series 3-1.

In that same fashion, Utah can also claim the third seed if they lose one more game and get to 48 wins, but it would require the Blazers to drop all three of their remaining games. That scenario would have both teams at 48-34, but Utah in third place by nature of owning the regular season head-to-head tiebreaker.

The scary thing about only getting to 48 wins, though, is that the Spurs, Oklahoma City Thunder and New Orleans Pelicans all still have a chance to finish at that mark too. Of course, for San Antonio to do so, they’d have to beat Portland, while the Spurs and Pelicans face off in their last game of the year as well, meaning that only one of those two could reach the 48-win mark.

The Thunder, meanwhile, have the daunting task of facing the Houston Rockets on Saturday, but they still could very well finish with 48 as well.

Let’s say the Western Conference insanity reaches its peak and the Utah Jazz close out the season 2-1 with a win over the Blazers, the Blazers lose all three and the Spurs and Thunder both go 3-0, meaning all four teams end with a 48-34 record. In this scenario, the Jazz would still claim the third seed, because they have the best head-to-head record among those four teams (they’re 3-1 against San Antonio, would be 3-1 against the Blazers and are 1-3 against OKC for a record of 7-5).

If only the Thunder, Jazz and Blazers finish with 48 wins, then the Blazers would finish third, the Jazz fourth and the Thunder fifth due to the head-to-head natures there. For clarification, the Blazers swept the Thunder 4-0 this season which gives them a nice edge to grab the top spot.

In other words, Utah’s safest bet is to win out and earn that 49-win mark. Doing so would ensure home court advantage as they would finish no worse than the fourth seed. And as long as Portland lost to the Jazz and one other game, Utah would finish on top. Although the third-seed is still possible with 48 wins, it becomes a lot less likely and much riskier.

But getting to 49, or even 48, wins is not going to be an easy task. The Jazz had their hands full with the Lakers at home and will be in for another tough challenge when they play them on Sunday. LA recently knocked off the Spurs, which helped the Jazz at the time, but was further evidence of how dangerous they could be.

Then, of course, the Jazz will host the Golden State Warriors and we all know how daunting they can be. True, they are still without Stephen Curry and recently got their butts thoroughly kicked by the Indiana Pacers, but they’re still undoubtedly a tough out.

Some have surmised that since it will be their last game of the season and they’re already solidified in the two-spot, they may rest their starters for that bout. I think that’s entirely possible, however, the Warriors may also be motivated to finish with a better record than the East-leading Toronto Raptors, so that if those two teams were to meet in the Finals, Golden State would have home court advantage.

Then, last of all, especially if the third seed and an ideal matchup is on the line, the final contest in Portland is going to have all the feeling of a playoff bout. Depending on how things shake up, the Jazz could be particularly motivated to play well in that game as it could be the difference between the third seed and home court advantage, or sliding to the fifth seed.

Say that OKC reaches 48 wins and Utah loses to Portland to finish the year at 48 wins. In that scenario, Portland would be the three-seed with at least 49 wins, OKC would own the tiebreaker for the fourth seed and the Jazz would slide to fifth to lose home court advantage.

As I’m sure you can tell (if you’re not just completely confused), the Western Conference is extremely tightly contested right now and just about anything can happen. Utah could finish as high as third or drop all the way to ninth, depending on how things end up.

But as you also ought to be able to see, reaching the third seed is entirely plausible. In fact, I think there’s a very good chance the Blazers lose at least one of their next two, meaning that as long as Utah wins out, that spot will be theirs. As such, all that’s standing in the way is a lottery-bound Lakers team and potentially short-handed Warriors and Blazers squads.

Next: Utah Jazz all but sink Clippers’ playoff hopes in 22-point rout

It’s far from a guarantee, but a third place finish for the Jazz is still entirely in play.