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Sarah Todd
Guest
SALT LAKE CITY — While the Eastern Conference playoff standings are officially locked up, the Western Conference is still embroiled in battles for position, and the San Antonio Spurs, who have made 22 consecutive playoff appearances with Gregg Popovich at the helm, are going to need a lot of help to even have a shot at making it this time around.
Since the eighth and ninth seeds in the West will have less than four games separating them in the standings, there will be a play-in tournament in which the eighth and ninth seeds will play each other to decide the final playoff spot in the conference. It’s single elimination for the eighth seed and double elimination for the ninth.
The Spurs, currently at 11th in the West, have a shot at being in the play-in tourney but, like I said, they’ll need help.
I’ll try to make this simple. The Spurs could jump into the eighth seed in the West if the Portland Trail Blazers, Memphis Grizzlies and Phoenix Suns all lost and the Spurs beat the Utah Jazz on Thursday, the final day of games for each of the five teams. That’s the least likely scenario with the Blazers set to play the Brooklyn Nets.
The Spurs could earn the ninth seed if they beat the Jazz on Thursday and two of the three other aforementioned teams lose.
Popovich surveyed the playoff landscape before the season resumed in Orlando and knew that his team was not going to be in the running to win a championship and knows that even if they are able to make the playoffs, they still don’t stand a chance.
With that in mind, he made the bubble into a development bootcamp for the young Spurs players, electing not to play some of the healthy starters — using them only when necessary — in order to give young guys more experience and to preserve his veterans for next season.
Popovich admitted on Tuesday that if someone had told him a month ago that the Spurs would have a chance to make the playoffs, he wouldn’t have believed it.
“I would have had them drug tested,” he said.
Now, with a small window open to make the playoffs, Popovich still wants his young players to gain experience and to continue to grow. That’s the top priority. If the Spurs happen to make it into the postseason, it’ll just be a bonus on what he considers to have already been a successful time in the NBA bubble.
“The development has been off the charts and we’re thrilled with it, so it’s a win-win no matter what,” he said. “If we are fortunate enough to have another team or two help us and we win … that’ll be thrilling. But we’ve already accomplished what we thought we were capable of accomplishing, and that’s what’s important. If we got in now, it would be icing on the cake.”
It all comes down to what happens on Thursday.
The Grizzlies will be taking on the East-leading Milwaukee Bucks while the Suns, undefeated in the bubble, face the Dallas Mavericks. Both games start at 2 p.m. MT. Then the Spurs and Jazz hit the court at 4:30 p.m., followed by the Blazers and Nets at 7 p.m.
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