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Houston Rockets: Analyzing The Low-Seed Murkiness Of The West

By James D'Elia

Mar 18, 2016; Houston, TX, USA; Houston Rockets forward Michael Beasley (8) celebrates with guard James Harden (13) after making a basket during the fourth quarter against the Minnesota Timberwolves at Toyota Center. The Rockets won 116-111. Mandatory Credit: Troy Taormina-USA TODAY Sports
Mar 18, 2016; Houston, TX, USA; Houston Rockets forward Michael Beasley (8) celebrates with guard James Harden (13) after making a basket during the fourth quarter against the Minnesota Timberwolves at Toyota Center. The Rockets won 116-111. Mandatory Credit: Troy Taormina-USA TODAY Sports /
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Mar 17, 2016; Salt Lake City, UT, USA; Utah Jazz forward Joe Ingles (2) and forward Derrick Favors (15) wait for center Rudy Gobert (27) and forward Trey Lyles (41) during a timeout at Vivint Smart Home Arena. The Utah Jazz defeated the Phoenix Suns 103-69. Mandatory Credit: Jeff Swinger-USA TODAY Sports
Mar 17, 2016; Salt Lake City, UT, USA; Utah Jazz forward Joe Ingles (2) and forward Derrick Favors (15) wait for center Rudy Gobert (27) and forward Trey Lyles (41) during a timeout at Vivint Smart Home Arena. The Utah Jazz defeated the Phoenix Suns 103-69. Mandatory Credit: Jeff Swinger-USA TODAY Sports /

Utah Jazz (33-35)

@CHI, @MIL, @HOU, @OKC, @MIN, LAL, GSW, MIN, @PHX, SAS, LAC, @DAL, @LAL

The Jazz have a tough road trip coming up and they’ll have to do it without Gordon Hayward most likely. Even if he comes back, plantar facsitis is not an injury that just completely goes away so he’ll be playing through considerable pain. Even though the Bucks have been poor this year they’ve still been a good team at home so no dice for the Jazz there. Again, it all comes down to that second-to-last game against Dallas.

That could be a fantastic game to watch as it’s likely both teams will throw everything at each other in order to get the right to be a doormat for the Warriors. Quin Snyder has said playoff experience was the goal for this season so don’t expect the Jazz to go down quietly but I can’t see them getting enough wins to get into the playoffs.

Prediction (5-9) Jazz fall out of the playoffs by one game with a record of 38-44

The Playoff Picture

So with Portland, Houston and Memphis all sitting on the same record we look to the conference record as the tiebreaker. As of today their current conference records sit at

Portland (24-19)

More from House of Houston

Houston (24-20)

Memphis (23-19)

Based off my predictions of wins above this is how the playoff picture will look on the 14th of April:

5- Houston Rockets (43-39) (32-21)

6- Portland Trailblazers (43-39) (31-22)

7- Memphis Grizzlies (43-39) (26-26)

8- Dallas Mavericks (39-43)

9- Utah Jazz (38-44)

The Rockets will manage to get to the 5th seed after looking nothing like a playoff team for most of the year. The one interesting thing that I’m sure you’ll notice is how close this all this. By no means are my predictions 100 percent accurate but it just goes to show how important this stretch is going to be as it is highly-likely three teams end up with 43 wins.

There were a lot of games — I really wasn’t sure of the result, it could have gone either way and the Rockets could quite easily end up as the 6th or 7th seed.  However, I do believe that they’ll end up locking in the 5th seed.

So this leads us to an interesting question, who will the Rockets match up against if they finish 5th in the west? Most likely the Rockets have a semi-final rematch against the Clippers, and this comes with both positives and negatives.

Next: CLICK HERE: Simulating A Match Up Vs. The Clippers

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