One of the first particularly memorable moments of a fascinating NBA regular season occurred on Nov. 8, when I was covering college football for Bloguin’s college sports site, The Student Section.
The New Orleans Pelicans traveled to San Antonio to take on the newly-crowned NBA champions. The business of the regular season had begun, but Spurs fans were still reveling in the newly-revealed championship banner. The memory of the 2014 title still had that “new car smell” in the Alamo City.
New Orleans — a team intent on trying to muscle its way into the playoff picture — had to find a way to make a statement… not just to the rest of the league, but to itself. The Pelicans needed to prove to themselves as much as anyone else that they could compete on even terms throughout the season and crack the postseason code in a ruthless Western Conference.
Anthony Davis made sure his teammates believed that anything was possible in the 2014-2015 NBA campaign.
After San Antonio — being the championship club it is — uncorked a 15-4 run in the final minutes to turn a 10-point deficit into a 99-98 lead with 12 seconds remaining, Davis responded by scoring on a layup with 6.6 seconds left. San Antonio failed to score on its ensuing possession, and the Pelicans — with their new nickname and uniforms after ceding the Hornets to Charlotte — had sent the message they needed to convey.
What you have seen since then is a New Orleans team that has notched a 10-game improvement from the previous season, something noted in this piece on the Utah Jazz, another member of the 10-game improvement club. The Pelicans can always use more from their backcourt, but with Davis playing like a genuine superstar (not merely a star — he’s become a top-five player in the league), they find themselves alive in the playoff chase after 81 games. They will claim a playoff ticket if they can win game number 82 on Wednesday night, the final night of the NBA regular season.
Which team just happens to be New Orleans’ opponent, pray tell?
It is, of course, the Spurs. It has to be the Spurs.
New Orleans must go through the champions at the end of the season, having first served notice to their improved status against the Spurs way back in early November, which might as well be the Paleozoic Era in terms of time and distance. Adding to the challenge of the moment is that the Pelicans must beat the Spurs at their best, not the team that wobbled out of the starting gate and didn’t hit its stride until March. What makes the task yet more daunting is that San Antonio is playing for something significant, and this leads us to the central thesis of our story.
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If you are going to watch one game Wednesday night, as a crowded NBA slate brings the regular season to a close, make it Spurs-Pelicans. Yes, the third and eighth seeds in the East will be determined, but the East is shaping up (of course) as an Atlanta-Cleveland show unless Derrick Rose can stay at a high level while playing extended minutes. The balance of Wednesday night’s drama exists in the West, where no single first-round playoff matchup is set.
New Orleans is obviously trying to fight for the final playoff spot in the West, and since Oklahoma City plays Minnesota, it is likely that the Pelicans — in possession of the tiebreaker for the eighth spot — will have to win their game in order to advance. However, in terms of shaping the race for the Western Conference and NBA championships, it’s the San Antonio side of the equation which matters even more in Spurs-Pelicans.
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The Spurs might be the best team in the league — they’ll soon get their chance to prove if they are — but whether or not you agree with that assertion, the complexion of the West playoffs could take a dramatic turn based on Wednesday night’s events.
Houston should take care of Utah. Assuming that happens, San Antonio would need to win in order to claim the Southwest Division title and the No. 2 seed which would accompany it. If the Spurs lost, on the other hand, other results from Tuesday and Wednesday could potentially push the defending champions to the No. 5 seed.
Forget the distinctions between or among the 2, 3 and 6 spots in the West. What’s worth focusing on here is the difference between any of those seeding positions and the 5 spot, opposite Portland, which is locked into the 4 seed. The No. 5 seed — if able to beat Portland in round one — would have to face Golden State in the second round, the West semifinals.
Perhaps San Antonio and Golden State are on an inevitable collision course in the eyes of some. However, it can matter when two teams face each other in the playoffs. One team might prefer to play a given opponent earlier because the wear and tear of the playoffs have not accumulated as much. Another team might be dealing with a couple of injuries or some difficulties managing its lineup combinations, and would therefore prefer to play its best challenger or rival at a later point in the playoffs. (Think of the Miami Heat and Boston Celtics in 2012. If the two teams had played in the second round and not the East Finals that spring, Chris Bosh would not have been able to play in Game 7 and save the series for the Heat.)
The New Orleans “in or out” drama — also affecting Oklahoma City — is one central drawing card for Spurs-Pelicans on Wednesday night. However, the issue of whether the Spurs fall into the top half or the bottom half of the West bracket — nearer or farther away from Golden State — is the item which could alter the course of the entire 2015 playoffs.
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The New Orleans Pelicans are playing only for themselves. However, they could very well push the San Antonio Spurs into Golden State’s path sooner than the defending champions would like.
The Pelicans gave the Spurs their first big shock of a trying and taxing season. Now that San Antonio has rounded into form, the Spurs would like to remind their younger counterparts from Louisiana who’s boss in this regional rendezvous… and achieve some important goals along the way, chiefly staying away from Golden State until the Western Conference Finals.
If there’s one game you want to watch on Wednesday, The Big Easy is hosting it. That’s an ironic reality, since nothing about this contest figures to be particularly easy for either side.
