It's On!!!

Tonight is a big night for Wolves fans.

Tonight we play Denver and a win could be a huge step toward making the playoffs. A loss, however, might cripple our chance of making it. If we lose, we will fall 5 games behind Denver in the loss column, meaning that we'll have virtually no chance of catching them. We still might be able to catch Memphis (who plays Miami tonight), but we will then be either 3 or 4 games behind them in the loss column, and they hold the tie-break.

On the other hand, a win would put us 3 behind Denver and give us the tiebreaker over them, and we'd be only 2 or three games behind Memphis.

I was talking about the Wolves with Petey the other night, and he seems very optimistic that the Wolves will indeed make the playoffs. Memphis has not been playing well as of late and has a ridiculously hard schedule.

Memphis	Minnesota
Miami Charlotte @Dallas @Houston @Denver @San Antonio San Antonio Dallas	Denver @Atlanta Golden State @Utah Seattle @New Orleans San Antonio

The Wolves will have a much easier schedule down the stretch. On top of this, they've been playing like an elite team lately, while the Grizz seem to have gone down the shitter.

I'm not as optimistic as Petey about the Wolves chances, but I certainly feel better about them now than I did a while ago. Plus, I feel like if they actually do make the playoffs, the way they're playing now, they'll probably be the most talented 8-seed in the history of the NBA and will actually have a chance to make it out of the first round.

Not Dead Yet

So the Wolves managed to lose a tough game to Phoenix, which was quite a disappointment. They played very well throughout the game only to have the Suns get hot in the closing minutes and take the game away.

The good news is that they've been playing very well as of late, and still have a good chance to make the playoffs. I figured that the Wolves could lose 1 or 2 games and still make the playoffs. The game against the Suns was certainly the hardest one they had left, so if we're gonna lose one, it might as well be that one. We also have a game against Denver on Friday, which will be a must win.

Other than that, we'll have a game against Seattle who has the division locked up and might start resting for the playoffs. They could still end up with a worse record than Dallas, but that would only matter if those two teams met, which wouldn't be very likely. I doubt they'll completely turn it off yet, but we might not get a 100% effort from them.

The other tough game is San Antonio. The good news about this one is that it's the last game of the season and Tim Duncan is hurt. This means the Spurs will likely be locked into a playoff position as well and won't won't want to put too much pressure on him. I expect this to be a fairly easy game to win.

All of our other games are against losers.

In other good news, Memphis has been struggling a bit and is now tied with Denver for the 7th/8th spot. What makes this even better is that Memphis and Denver play each other twice between now and the end of the season. This means that in the worst case, the Wolves are guaranteed to gain at least 1 game on the 8-seed. In the case that the same team wins each game we'll gain 2-games. If that team is Denver, and we're also able to beat them on Friday, we'll be only 1 game behind them in the loss column.

Of course, none of this means anything if the Wolves don't keep their part of the bargain.