Los Angeles Clippers’ Playoff Hopes in the Wild West
By Rick Devine
With the playoff race so tightly knit, we take a look at the road ahead for the Los Angeles Clippers and tell you why you shouldn’t worry.
You guys, the Los Angeles Clippers are in the 7th seed! A few days ago we were on the outside looking in, sitting in 9th, and now we are one loss ahead of the Jazz, Nuggets and Spurs. You read that right, the Spurs, who sat comfortably not too long ago in the 3rd seed, but now seem the most in danger to fall out after going 2-8 in their last ten and almost dropping one to the dreadful Grizzlies the other night. Yikes.
This is the scrappiest and most determined Clipper team we’ve arguably seen since the 05-06 team, and I don’t know about you but I love it. It’s been a interesting season, and hopefully after a win tonight in Chicago, we start stacking numbers in the win column and keep climbing our way into and stay in the playoffs. Putting a nice bow on this amazingly wild season. So let’s focus on the good, and breakdown a little of how, if the Clippers keep winning they can get a playoff berth. Because like our man Ralph Lawler has said multiple times this season, “this team just doesn’t know how to quit.”
Breakdown
Like stated, the Clippers currently sit in 7th in the West at 36-29. Sure, things are fluctuating, that means things can easily go our way, just as quickly as they can go bad for us. But don’t worry, they wont, we are playoff bound. There are 17 or so games left for each team. What’s important to pay attention to is the loss column, you can stack wins but you need to outpace losses. Meaning it’s your own destiny you control when you win, but you can’t force other teams to lose, although we can root against them all the same.
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The Trailblazers lead this pack of teams competing for the 6 spots left in the playoffs. Portland have a nice cushion too with 26 losses, which is two ahead of The Pelicans who have 28 losses but need two wins to catch up to the Thunder who have 29 losses and are tied with our boys The Clippers and the Timberwolves. (the Warriors had one job!) Finally the Jazz, Nuggets, and Spurs have 30 losses. Ready to join me in my optimism yet?
Next thing to look at is strength of schedule. Sure, the Clippers have a real Lord of the Rings type trip through Mordor on their hands with match ups against the Rockets, Thunder (on a back to back ugh), Trail Blazers, Timberwolves, Bucks and Raptors but destiny, like that film also about rings, is also in their hands.
How so? Two reasons, one as long as they win the ones they are supposed to win and steal some along the way they should be fine. All they have to do is be the Clippers. Easy. They aren’t the ones with the hardest schedule either, that’s for the Spurs and the Timberwolves. The two teams that most seemed like playoff locks in this group, now face the most danger of falling out. They both have lost their respective star players (although rumors say that Kawhi Leonard returns later this week) and both have tough tough match-ups against teams like the Rockets, Warriors, 76ers, Wizards, Bucks and our own Clippers, that’s a tough road.
Still don’t feel safe? Remember when I said we need to win the ones “we are supposed to win”? The Clippers have 6 match-ups with teams currently sitting ahead of them, that’s a 1-1 win loss swap right there, and that’s how you climb the win ladder while forcing them to climb down the loss one. In addition to those we have 3 games with those pesky teams below us, necessary wins to keep them at bay. Win these, own those series, own those tiebreakers, then you’d have no reason to doubt my optimism.
If you feel overwhelmed with all the teams you need to keep track of, stay tuned. We here at Clipperholics plan to give you a run down of all the games to pay attention to, all the teams to root against, and will happily tell you how the Clippers’ odds of making the post season strengthen daily.
Let’s hope the Clippers draw first out there in the wild wild West, maintain this next man up attitude and have a chance at post season glory. Because let’s face it, 7 consecutive payoff trips just sounds better when we pitch it to Paul George this offseason.