Estimated read time: 6-7 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
SALT LAKE CITY — Two weeks left. Just seven games.
That's all that's left for the Utah Jazz in their fight to make the NBA's postseason for the first time with this rebuilding core. And if results hold, they've got a good chance to do it.
FiveThirtyEight.com runs a modeling system that predicts the probability of each team winning and losing each game from here through the rest of the season. Then, taking into account all of those probabilities, the model spits out the likelihood that each team will make the 2016 NBA postseason.
For the Utah Jazz, that number is 91 percent.
In case you're curious, that number is based on the following likelihoods that each of the five teams win their remaining six or seven games:
| Utah | Memphis | Portland | Houston | Dallas | |||||
| **Record: 37-38** | **Record: 41-34** | **Record: 40-36** | **Record: 37-39** | **Record: 37-38** | |||||
| MIN | 85% | TOR | 43% | MIA | 69% | OKC | 39% | at DET | 33% |
| at PHX | 68% | at ORL | 42% | at GSW | 10% | at DAL | 44% | at MIN | 52% |
| SAS | 34% | CHI | 67% | at SAC | 55% | PHX | 84% | HOU | 56% |
| LAC | 55% | at DAL | 35% | OKC | 43% | LAL | 89% | MEM | 65% |
| at DEN | 46% | GSW | 17% | MIN | 84% | at MIN | 53% | at LAC | 19% |
| DAL | 74% | at LAC | 18% | DEN | 80% | SAC | 75% | at UTA | 26% |
| at LAL | 73% | at GSW | 7% | SAS | 28% | ||||
| **Playoffs?** | **91%** | **Playoffs?** | **99%** | **Playoffs?** | **99%** | **Playoffs?** | **76%** | **Playoffs?** | **33%** |
There's a lot to deconstruct here. Let's go through some quick notes:
- Memphis has won too many games to have a great shot of falling out of the playoffs completely, but their finishing schedule is difficult while they're facing great injury. They're only favored in one of their remaining games, and that's against a Chicago Bulls team that beat the Rockets in Houston last night. Should they win just one more of their remaining games, as expected, they'd finish with 42 wins.
- Portland is already 2.5 games up on the Jazz, and have an easy finishing stretch at home against Minnesota and Denver. They'd probably really have to fall apart, or the Jazz would have to go undefeated, for Utah to catch them now. Both seem very unlikely. They'd finish with 44 wins if it goes as expected.
- Houston is a weird mess of talent playing wildly inconsistently. Their snatch-defeat-from-the-jaws-of-victory loss against the Bulls at home Thursday night is only the latest example. But their schedule can't get any easier after these next two games: they play the Suns, Lakers, Timberwolves, and Kings in their last four. Are they really going to lose those games? They haven't lost to a bottom 8 team in 2016. They're currently expected to win 41 games.
- Dallas is beaten up right now: they lost Chandler Parsons to knee surgery and Deron Williams is doubtful in Friday's game against Detroit. The model doesn't know that, all it knows is that they've been playing poorly recently. But they're still favored to win three games before April 11th, the date of their clash with the Utah Jazz in Salt Lake City. The Jazz are also favored to win three games before then. In other words, the two teams would be ties going into that critical matchup. In that case, because the winner of that game also receives the tiebreaker between the two teams, if the Jazz lost, they'd be guaranteed to fall behind Dallas in the standings, and likely miss the playoffs. Ideally, the Jazz would get a two-game cushion before that game to have an insurance policy in case that April 11 game goes wrong (especially because they're playing on a back-to-back). Nevertheless, they're slated to win just 40 games overall.
- Rest could be a big factor in this race. Golden State is still playing for the NBA all-time win record, so they're playing their best players every night. But San Antonio, now 5 full games back of the Warriors but over 10 games ahead of the third-place Thunder, will probably look to rest their best players frequently. But Tony Parker indicated that they'd probably play in Utah. They probably won't against Dallas. The Thunder and Clippers are also locked into their spots, but will they rest their guys as they try to become more consistent? I'd say the Thunder are more likely to than LAC (because the Clippers will need to reintegrate Blake Griffin in their lineup), but we haven't seen new Thunder coach Billy Donovan's approach to rest yet.
If they win the games they're favored in, they'd win 42, tying them for the sixth seed with Memphis. The Jazz would win that tiebreaker, so they'd be playing the Thunder in the playoffs. Essentially, the Jazz control their own destiny here: if they win the games they're supposed to, they'll be in the playoffs.
Given that, the team knows that focus is more important than ever before. "Any one of these games could knock us out of the playoffs," coach Quin Snyder said.
Interestingly, Jazz players don't seem to care too much about seeding. For them, it's relatively binary: making the playoffs will be a success, and not would be disappointing. Sure, the Jazz have had some close games against Golden State, but they know that they'll be facing a nearly impossible uphill climb against any of the West's top three teams.
For now, though, it's all about getting there.
"We're in a race. It's fun right now," Rodney Hood said. "We know we have a chance to do something special."
