Lauri Markkanen’s Utah is still theoretically fighting for a place in the NBA playoffs. The climax of the regular season is exceptionally even in the Western Conference anyway.
20:00•Updated 20:15
The regular season of the basketball league NBA will culminate this coming weekend. Urheilu highlighted three issues to be followed during the last game days.
1) Will Markkanen’s season end already at Easter?
Lauri Markkanen has played by far the best basketball season of his career in the NBA. Unfortunately for Markkanen, Utah’s season, which he represents, threatens to end in the regular season, as has happened to Markkanen in each of his NBA seasons.
The teams ranked 7-10 in the conference play each other in a so-called playoff qualifying tournament, from which two teams advance to the playoffs of their conference. Utah is currently 12th in the Western Conference with three games to play.
In theory, the Jazz can still move up to tenth, but they must win all their games. At the same time, Oklahoma City, now ranked tenth, and Dallas, ranked eleventh, should lose their remaining games. Adding spice to the situation is the fact that Utah will face Oklahoma City next night.
Early on Friday morning, it can therefore be known whether Markkanen’s season ended again in the regular season. In any case, a place in the playoffs is under a giant rock, because in addition to a favorable end of the regular season, Utah should beat the two opponents ranked higher in the regular season in the playoff qualifying tournament. The Jazz will play their last game against the Los Angeles Lakers on Sunday at 22:30 Finnish time.
2) Will last season’s champion qualify for the playoffs?
The NBA’s Western Conference has been exceptionally even throughout the season. The meaning of even one win for the team may have been many places in the league table. In the final meters, the situation starts to clear up, but there is still plenty to worry about even above Utah.
The first four teams of the conference have secured their place in the playoffs, but last season’s champion Golden State Warriors, among others, can still qualify for the playoffs from fifth place.
In addition to the Warriors, the Los Angeles teams Clippers and Lakers, who started this season with great expectations and are winged by superstars, are in a tight battle for a direct playoff spot. At least one of these three teams will have to enter the qualifying tournament, the system of which is crude as the teams that make it to the playoffs are decided in practically a single match.
In addition to these three teams, New Orleans and Minnesota are fighting for a direct playoff spot. Ninth-ranked Minnesota is just two wins behind Golden State. By comping others, Minnesota can still get into a direct playoff spot.
Both conferences have their own tournament. This is how the tournaments are implemented:
Match 1) In the regular season of the conference, the seventh-placed team meets the eighth-placed team. The winner of this match will advance to the playoffs as the seventh team.
Match 2) In the regular season, the ninth-placed team meets the tenth-placed team. The season of the loser of this match ends.
Match 3) The loser of Match 1 will face the winner of Match 2. The winner of this match advances to the playoffs as the eighth team in their conference.
3) Did one of the all-time MVP battles settle down?
One of the biggest talking points of the NBA season has been the exceptionally even battle for the MVP award given to the league’s most valuable player at the end of the season. As the season progresses, three candidates have stood out from the others, with the one seeking his third consecutive award Nikola Jokicthe centerpiece of Philadelphia Joel Embiid and a two-time award winner Giannis Antetokounmpo have played at a wild level.
In a slightly pointed way, you could say that Embiid charms with his all-round dribbling skills, Jokic with his uniqueness as an offensive end, and Giannis with his comprehensiveness. The prize has been debated especially between Embiid and Jokic.
Basketball site Basketball Refenrence (you switch to another service) so-called MVP tracking puts Jokic’s winning probability at 59.5 percent. Embiid gets the second highest probability, just 14.5 percent. Giannis’ reading is 9.3. The tracking ranks the players based on a model created based on votes from previous years.
Embiid has forged the season with a wild average of 33.3 points per game. Jokic has recorded 24.8 points, 11.9 rebounds and 9.8 assists per game. Jokic also excels in so-called more advanced statistics. For example, his true shooting percentage is an incredible 70.2. True shooting percentage takes two-point shots, three-point shots and free throws into account when measuring shooting efficiency.
Embiid has not seemed to be able to find a stopper this season, in addition to which he scored 47 points against Jokic at the end of January when Philadelphia knocked off Denver.
Embiid’s defenders got their latest argument the other night, when the center put up 52 points against another Eastern giant, Boston. Such individual victories from the meetings of the top teams could very well make the struggle for Embiid a gig. The winner of the MVP award is decided by a vote of 100 North American sports journalists.