As we enter the last week of the NBA’s regular season, the Clippers’ fate is still up in the air–we know that they’ll at least make some kind of postseason appearance after clinching a top-10 finish in the West with Dallas’ loss Sunday. Currently, the Clippers are 3 losses behind the 4th-place Suns, 2 losses ahead of the 9th-place Minnesota Timberwolves, and 3 losses ahead of the 10th-place Oklahoma City Thunder. Technically, every spot from 4th to 10th is still in play for the Clippers, though 4, 9, and 10 are all extremely unlikely. Passing the Suns is impossible unless the Clippers win all 3 of their remaining games and the Suns lose all 4 of theirs. Similarly, the Thunder passing the Clippers would require the Clippers losing all 3 of their remaining games while the Thunder win all 3 of theirs (this would pull the teams into a tie, with OKC winning the regular season H2H series 3-1). Minnesota’s buffer is only slightly wider, as they could weather one Clipper win or Wolves loss and still pass LAC. But for now, I’m going to set them aside and revisit them later in the week if needed.
While those options aren’t mathematically eliminated, they’re obviously extremely unlikely to happen. The range of outcomes that are much more likely to be in play for the Clippers are spots 5-8 in the Western Conference, where they are currently in a dead heat with the Golden State Warriors, Los Angeles Lakers, and New Orleans Pelicans. All 4 teams currently have 38 losses, with the Warriors and Clippers both holding 41 wins and having 3 games remaining, while the Lakers and Pelicans each have 40 wins and 4 games remaining. The Clippers finish the season with games against the Lakers, Blazers, and Suns. The Warriors still have to play the Thunder, Kings, and Blazers. The Lakers have games left against the Jazz, Clippers, Suns, and Jazz again. And the Pelicans close out their campaign against the Kings, Grizzlies, Knicks, and Timberwolves. At this stage, any combination of these teams could end up tied–in fact, it would be surprising if there wasn’t a tie somewhere in this 5-8 range. So, let’s look at the lay of the land with the possible tie combinations involving the Clippers:
Clippers & Warriors tie
Status: Clippers lead
Win Condition: Clippers clinch with 1 of the following 3 results: Clippers beat Lakers, Kings beat Warriors, Clippers beat Suns
Loss Condition: Warriors clinch with all 3 of the following results: Lakers beat Clippers, Warriors beat Kings, Suns beat Clippers
Explantion: The Clippers and Warriors tied their regular season series 2-2. Since they’re in the same division, if they finish in a 2-team tie, the next tiebreaker is division record. The Clippers are currently 7-7 vs Pacific Division foes, while the Warriors are 6-9. If any of the above 3 games goes LAC’s way, the Clippers will win this two-team tiebreaker on division record. If all 3 games listed above go the Warriors’ way, we would move to the third tiebreaker, which is conference record. The Warriors are currently ahead in conference record and, by nature of the Warrior wins and Clipper losses required to tie the division record criteria, would win the two-team tiebreaker with the Clippers if it came to that.
Clippers and Pelicans tie
Status: Pelicans won
Explanation: The Pelicans clinched the 2-team tiebreaker vs the Clippers by winning the regular season series 3-0.
Clippers and Lakers tie
Status: Clippers won
Explanation: The Clippers clinched the 2-team tiebreaker vs the Lakers by taking a 3-0 lead in the regular season series, with 1 game remaining.
Clippers, Warriors, and Pelicans tie
Status: Pelicans 1st, Warriors 2nd, Clippers 3rd (clinched)
Explanation: In a 3-team tie, the first tiebreaker is combined head-to-head record. The Clippers and Warriors are 2-2. The Pelicans and Warriors are 2-2. The Pelicans beat the Clippers 3-0. Therefore, whether this tie was 5/6/7 or 6/7/8, the Clippers would be going to the Play-In-Tournament, likely either for a “home” game vs the Lakers (who would presumably finish 8th if this was a 5/6/7 tie) or a road game to the Warriors (who would finish 7th if this was a 6/7/8 tie).
Clippers, Warriors, and Lakers tie
Status: Clippers 1st, Lakers 2nd, Warriors 3rd (clinched)
Explanation: So, even though all of these teams are in the same division, we still start with their combined head-to-head records as the first tiebreaker. The Clippers are a combined 5-2 vs the Warriors and Lakers, while the Lakers are 3-4 and the Warriors are 3-5. If the Lakers beat the Clippers in the final game among this group, they’d have the 2nd-best combined H2H record. But even if they lose that game, they’d beat the Warriors for 2nd in this 3-team tie. Once a multi-team tie is broken by a criteria removing at least one team, the tiebreak process resets among the teams who are still tied. So, if on the first 3-team tie criteria the Clippers win and the Warriors and Laker are still tied, they don’t move to the 2nd 3-team tie criteria, they set the Clippers aside and run Warriors/Lakers as a 2-team tie. The Lakers won the regular season series 3-1 and have therefore already clinched 2nd in this hypothetical 3-way tie regardless of the outcome of Wednesday’s game vs the Clippers. If this was a 5/6/7 tie, the Clippers would go on the road against the Suns in the first round while the Warriors hosted (presumably) the Pelicans in the Play-In Tournament. If this was a 6/7/8 tie, the Clippers would secure the 6 seed and the Warriors would have a road game against the Lakers in the Play-In Tournament.
Clippers, Pelicans, and Lakers tie
Status: Pelicans 1st (clinched), Clippers 2nd (currently lead), Lakers 3rd (currently trail)
Win Condition: Clippers clinch 2nd in this 3-team tiebreaker with a win over the Lakers
Loss Condition: Clippers clinch 3rd in this 3-team tiebreaker with a loss to the Lakers
Explanation: Again, we look at combined head-to-head. The Pelicans are currently 4-3, Clippers 3-3, and Lakers 3-4, with one Clippers-Lakers game remaining. If the Clippers win that game, they’ll tie the Pelicans at 4-3 and the Lakers will be alone in last at 3-5. The Lakers would then be removed from the tie, and the Pelicans would win the 2-team tie with the Clippers based on the 3-0 season series win. In that case, a 5/6/7 tie would give the Clippers the 6-seed, while in a 6/7/8 tie their only reward would be hosting the 7-8 Play-In game vs the Lakers.
But if the Lakers win Wednesday’s head-to-head with the Clippers, the Lakers would improve to 4-4 in the combined head-to-head while the Clippers would drop to 3-4. Once again, in a 5/6/7 tie, this would be massively important as the Lakers would be protected from the Play-In Tournament while the Clippers would (most likely) have to host the Warriors in the 7-8 game. If this was a 6/7/8 tie, the 7-8 game would be Lakers-Clippers regardless, and the Lakers getting 2nd in this tiebreaker would just change the designated home team for the game.
Clippers, Warriors, Pelicans, and Lakers tie
Status: Pelicans currently lead, Lakers currently 2nd, Clippers currently 3rd, Warriors clinched last
Win Condition: The Clippers will finish 2nd in this 4-team tiebreaker if they beat the Lakers on Wednesday
Loss Condition: The Clippers will finish 3rd in this 4-team tiebreaker if they lose to the Lakers on Wednesday
Explanation: So, even in the big one, we just add up the combined head-to-head records. The Pelicans and Lakers are each 6-5, while the Clippers are 5-5 and the Warriors are 5-7. Clippers-Lakers is the only remaining head-to-head among this group.
If the Clippers win that game, they’ll join the Pelicans at 6-5 while bumping the Lakers to 6-6. Assuming this is a 5/6/7/8 tie, the Lakers would finish 7th and the Warriors would finish 8th, setting up Warriors @ Lakers in the Play-In Tournament. The Clippers and Pelicans would reset as a 2-team tie, which New Orleans would win, placing the Pelicans 5th and the Clippers 6th.
If the Lakers win that game, they’ll pass the Pelicans, finishing 7-5 to New Orleans’ 6-5, the Clippers’ 5-6, and the Warriors’ 5-7. No further tiebreakers would be needed; the Lakers would be the 5-seed, the Pelicans would be the 6-seed, and we’d have Warriors @ Clippers in the 7-8 Play-In game.
The Timberwolves
I mentioned at the beginning that I would be setting aside the Wolves for now, and I hope that this post illustrates why–adding a 5th team to the mix creates a ton of additional 2-, 3-, and 4-team tie possibilities, in addition to the massive potential 5-team tiebreaker. Since they currently sit 2 losses back of the pack, it’s very likely that a lot of those scenarios will be closed off in the coming days. But if any Clippers-Wolves scenarios are still play heading into the final weekend of the regular season, I’ll be sure to break down the possibilities either in an article here or on my Twitter, where I am doing daily live tweeting of standings watching. For now, it might just be useful to know that the Wolves are 2-2 vs the Warriors, 2-1 vs the Clippers, 2-1 vs the Lakers, and 1-1 vs the Pelicans with a potentially massive final game vs New Orleans on the last day of the regular season.
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