The OKC-Dallas result was slightly out of the ordinary but besides that everything pretty much went the way I expected - and the way you probably should have expected if you aren't completely unreasonable. Just remember this - 7 teams, 3 total games. The rest of the season is going to be absolutely insane.
Saturday April 3rd Western Conference Results:
Oklahoma City Thunder 121 Dallas Mavericks 116 (Recap) - OK this one surprised me a bit. Dallas was at home and still managed to lose to a Oklahoma City team that didn't get a phenomenal performance from Kevin Durant (23 pts on 7/18 shooting). The win claimed a playoff berth for OKC and in my estimation gives them a fighting chance at getting into the race for the 2 seed (they are just 2 games back). Speaking of the 2 seed - the Dallas loss combined with the Denver/Phoenix results below created a 4-way tie for the spot.
Milwaukee Bucks 107 Phoenix Suns 98 (Recap) - What did you really expect? It was the Suns 5th game in 7 nights, they were on the road, and they really hadn't been playing that well leading up to a visit to Milwaukee. This one disappoints me personally since I actually kind of like the Bucks - and not only did they beat the Suns they also probably lost Andrew Bogut for the season. Rely on Wil for any further analysis.
Denver Nuggets 98 Los Angeles Clippers 90 (Recap) -The Clippers are 27-49. Do you really need to know more than that? It's a bad team playing out the string. Just commit this to memory for the rest of the season - when a playoff team is playing a non-playoff team, the playoff team is going to win and in most cases it won't be competitive. This was no different.
Portland Trail Blazers 98 Sacramento Kings 87 (Recap) - See above - and the Kings are 3.5 games behind the Clippers for 12th place. Spoiler alert, 12th place doesn't get you into the playoffs.
Western Conference Standings:
| TEAM | W | L | PCT | GB | L10 | STREAK |
| 1. LA Lakers |
55 | 21 | .724 | - | 7-3 | WON 1 |
| 2. Dallas |
50 | 27 | .649 | 5.5 |
5-5 | LOST 2 |
| 3. Denver |
50 | 27 | .649 | 5.5 | 5-5 | WON 2 |
| 4. Utah | 50 | 27 | .649 | 5.5 | 7-3 | LOST 1 |
|
5. SUNS |
50 | 27 | .649 | 5.5 | 9-1 | LOST 1 |
| 6. Oklahoma City |
47 | 28 | .627 | 7.5 | 6-4 | WON 3 |
| 7. San Antonio |
46 | 29 | .613 | 8.5 | 6-4 | WON 2 |
| 8. Portland |
47 | 30 | .610 | 8.5 |
8-2 | WON 1 |
Sunday April 4th Western Conference Games of Significance:
Spurs @ Lakers -Hey fellow Suns fans....grin and bear it.. Gotta have the Lakers win this one. Whether they will depends on if LA can actually contain the scalding hot Manu Ginobili.
Timberwolves @ Thunder - If you believe in miracles you might think that a team which starts Darko Milicic will beat the Thunder in Oklahoma City. If you don't believe in miracles then you should probably look at the loss column and see how many OKC has at this point.