In the last nine days of the 2021-22 regular season, the ranking suspense drama continued, and after the game ended on April 3, the Nets squandered Durant's career high to the tenth place in the East, and the Warriors reversed the Jazz to stop four consecutive losses, holding the third place in the West while locking up the playoffs.
The Nets lost the slot to tenth
Prior to the Game on April 3, the Nets, Hornets and Hawks were all 40-37, with the Nets in eighth place with a three-team head-to-head advantage, and the Hornets and Hawks in ninth and tenth, respectively. The Hornets lost to the 76ers on April 3, and the Nets fought a card battle with the Hawks, and if the Nets win, they could pull off a win gap with the Hawks and Hornets.
However, the Nets failed to seize the opportunity, losing to the Hawks, and Durant scored a career-high 55 points in vain. This loss is not a small blow to the Nets' ranking, the hawks with five consecutive wins are 41 wins and 37 losses to rise to ninth, the Nets and the Hornets are both 40 wins and 38 losses, because the Nets have played the Hornets 1-2 this season, so the Hornets are in front of the Nets by virtue of their hand-to-hand advantage, and the Nets' ranking in the East has fallen to tenth.
The Nets have already made sure they won't fall out of the playoffs, but they still have a theoretical chance to grab six straight to the playoffs before April 3, and now that opportunity is completely broken. The Nets have a five-win difference from the Sixth Bulls in the East, with only four games left in the regular season to catch up, and the Nets can only play playoffs to get a chance to enter the playoffs. Of the four teams in the current Eastern Play-offs region, the Cavaliers and Hawks still have the potential to compete for the sixth theory, with the two teams trailing the Bulls by two wins and four wins respectively.
According to the playoff rules, seventh and eighth have "two lives" in the playoffs, while the ninth and tenth lose one game and are out, so while the Nets do not fall out of the playoff area, the specific ranking is the top half of the playoff (seventh or eighth) or the bottom half (ninth or tenth) has a big impact.
For the Nets, the slightest consolation is that only the Cavaliers are still in the playoffs in the remaining 4 games, and the other 3 opponents, the Rockets, Knicks and Pacers, have all confirmed that they will not make the playoffs. If the Nets can't harvest victories against such a schedule, it's their own dish.
The Nets are not a dish in the end, not Durant alone, into Ramadan Irving shot 32 shots against the Hawks 12 of 32, returning to full-time since the 4-game shooting rate of 36%. Mills scored zero of 7 from the Field against the Hawks, and he has scored in six consecutive games without double-figures, making it 5-of-30 from six games.
The Warriors tried to secure the top three to lock up the playoffs
The Suns and Grizzlies have long since established first and second place in the West, and the two teams now aim to set new records for winning the field in their history in the regular season. The third place in the West is a question mark waiting to be answered, and the outcome of a game will change.
The Warriors against the Jazz, who are fifth in the West, is an important game for the Warriors to protect the top four in the West. The battle was fraught with danger, with the Warriors trailing by as many as 21 points, with a 16-point gap with just seven minutes left in the fourth quarter. Seeing that the third place in the West was about to lose again, Klay Thompson set off a three-point rainstorm, and the Warriors counterattacked with a wave of 24-4 offensive to complete the big turnaround, Thompson scored 36 points in the fourth quarter and 12 points, which was Thompson's second single-game score of 35+ in the last four games.
The Warriors stopped a four-game losing streak with a big reversal and are currently in third place in the West with 49 wins and 29 losses, one win ahead of the fourth Lone Ranger, while ensuring a head-to-head record advantage against the Jazz with a 3-1 loss, adding another insurance to protect the top four in the West. The win secured a playoff spot for the Warriors, who, after two consecutive seasons of missing out on the playoffs, finally returned to a place they once knew perfectly well.
PUBG was angry, but the Warriors' battle to hold on to the first half of the playoffs continued. The Warriors lost 6 of their 8 games after Curry was injured, and Curry has determined that he will not return in the regular season. Waiting for the playoffs to come back, the Warriors can't count on Curry in the regular season, their remaining 4 games to play the Kings, Lakers, Spurs and Pelicans, only against the Lakers is home, the rest are away from home. The Warriors' four opponents are not the top eight teams in the West, but in addition to the Kings, the other three are desperately trying to grab a play-off spot, and the Pressure on the Warriors is still not small. After all, the Warriors have no head-to-head advantage over the Lone Rangers this season, and they need to directly suppress the Lone Rangers by relying on the winning percentage to hold on to the third place.
The Battle for Top Spot in the East is heated to extend the lead
The top four rankings in the East are intertwined, and each game affects the rankings. The First Heat Bulls in the East won three straight, and the Heat became the first team in the East to win 50, which was the Heat's first 50 wins since the 2013-14 season, and the last 50 wins, James was still in the Heat.
The Heat extended their lead over the Second Eastern Conference Second Bucks to 1.5 wins, a 0.5 win gap between the Bucks and the Third Celtics in the East, and the Heat, Bucks and Celtics have all locked up playoff positions ahead of schedule.
The Fourth 76ers of the East beat the Hornets by 30 points, and the 76ers stopped a three-game losing streak and improved to 47-30. In the case of the 76ers winning, if the Cavaliers lose, the 76ers can lock up a playoff spot, but the Cavaliers win the Knicks, and the 76ers ensure that the playoffs will be postponed, as long as the 76ers win one more game, or the Cavaliers lose one more game, the 76ers can pocket the playoff tickets.
Originally, if the Bulls won and the Cavaliers lost, the Bulls could secure a playoff spot, but the reality was that the Bulls lost and the Cavaliers won. The Bulls dropped to 45-33, the 45-32 Raptors overtook the Bulls to fifth in the East, and the Bulls, who fell to sixth, had two wins differences with the Seventh Cavaliers. To the Bulls' advantage, they played 3-1 against the Raptors and 3-1 against the Cavaliers, and the Bulls have the same ranking advantage.
The suspense of grabbing five in the west is rising again
The Jazz conceded a good game, and although they were still fifth in the West, they were already 46-32 with the sixth Nuggets, two wins ahead of the seventh Timberwolves in the West. The fifth place in the West is still full of suspense, and the Jazz's favorable condition for grabbing five is that they have 4 wins and 0 losses against the Nuggets this season, 3 wins and 1 loss against the Timberwolves, and if the record is the same, they are ranked high.
The Timberwolves and Clippers in the Western Playoffs have long since made sure they won't fall out, and now it's the Pelicans, Spurs and Lakers competing for two playoff spots. The Pelicans, who are 34-43, are ninth in the West, and the Pelicans only need to win two of the remaining five regular season games to secure a playoff.
The Lakers, who are 11th in 31-46, are already three wins behind the Pelicans, and with the Pelicans playing 0-3 this season, the Lakers' chances of catching up with the Pelicans are low. Pelicans are expected to "go ashore" in advance, the playoff battle or will evolve into a PK between the Lakers and the Spurs, the Lakers are behind the Spurs 32 wins and 45 losses, calculating the ranking rules elements, the Lakers due to the performance of the Western team is not good, once the same ranking as the Spurs will be lower, the Lakers only have a regular season record directly over the Spurs to enter the playoffs. The Lakers and Spurs both have a game on April 4, the Lakers played hard with the Jazz to grab the Nuggets, and the Spurs played a highly motivated Blazers who have determined that they did not qualify for the playoffs.