Sunday Shootaround

BOSTON -- The strangest of playoff chases pulled out all the stops last week with five teams in various states of either rebuilding or retrenchment jockeying for the final two postseason spots in the Eastern Conference. It made for an oddly compelling week in which players valiantly battled through injuries and fortunes rose or fell with each shift in the standings.

None of which changes the fundamental fact that their postseason resumés are completely uninspiring. Take the Pacers and Heat, who have spent the season dealing with crippling injuries to key players. It’s a credit to both that they have hung in here this long. Still, it’s a staggering fall for the two teams that spent the last two seasons battling for conference supremacy.

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The Hornets and Nets are dealing with the fallouts of failed experiments. In Charlotte’s case it was signing Lance Stephenson in free agency. For the Nets, it’s the legacy of a series of a boom-or-bust moves that left them with a bloated roster and the knowledge that failure to make the playoffs will force them to surrender a lottery pick to the Hawks.

Then there are the Celtics, who are stuck in the age-old NBA rebuilding quandary: how good does your team have to be before it’s too good? It would probably be in their long-term benefit to miss the postseason, move up a few spots in the draft order and maybe get lucky in the lottery. Of the five franchises still in contention, they are the ones who theoretically need the postseason the least. Naturally, they won three out of four and vaulted back into eighth after a last-second overtime win over Toronto.

The case for ending conferences has never been stronger, and Exhibit A will be the presence of two of these teams in the playoffs while better squads from the West are sent home. That doesn’t even account for the Bucks, who have stumbled into the sixth seed with an uninspiring .500 record. Nor does it help the 50-win teams out West who are still trying to secure home court advantage in the first round.

The East and West have always operated in parallel dimensions, but it’s rarely been this pronounced. Eight of the top 10 teams in basketball-reference’s Simple Rating System are from the West, as are five of the top six Most Valuable Player candidates. Among the five Eastern teams competing for those final two spots, none have a positive point differential.

Thanks to a scheduling quirk, they spent the week playing each other in a masochistic round robin. On Monday, the Celtics beat the Hornets in Charlotte, while Stephenson watched from the bench with a DNP-CD. On Tuesday, the Nets turned back the Pacers and the C’s did the same the next night in Boston.

Indy stubbornly clung to its fading hopes by beating Charlotte on Friday, while the Celtics turned in a dreadful performance in a loss to the Bucks. The Heat had to contend with the defending champs on Tuesday and a visit to Cleveland on Thursday. They lost both by a combined 40 points, and then blew a 13-point lead at Detroit.

Left for dead at the beginning of the month, the Nets emerged in the strongest position thanks to a six-game winning streak. Until they went to Atlanta and lost by 32 points. Their hold on a postseason berth is tenuous thanks to a brutal schedule in the final week and a half. After all that, nothing was resolved and almost everything remains in play. Even the Hornets are still mathematically alive.

The payoff for all of this? A first-round playoff series against either Atlanta or Cleveland that figures to last all of five games. The reward for falling short? A chance to move up into the top 10 of the draft and maybe even higher if things break right on lottery night.

The system is broken and needs an overhaul, but cast aside your cynicism for a moment. In our world of fantasy GMing and obsessing over asset collection, we’d do well to remember that making the postseason is still a big freaking deal, no matter your place in the tournament. For some players this is their first chance. For others, it may be their last shot at postseason glory.

That’s why Al Jefferson had fluid drained from his aching knee three times in nine days and why Dwyane Wade suited up 48 hours after bruising his already balky knee in an awkward fall. It’s why Lionel Hollins played Deron Williams and Brook Lopez for the entire second-half in a must-win game against the Raptors, and why Kelly Olynyk played at all after taking an elbow from a teammate that left him barely able to see out of his eye. It’s why Paul George was scheduled to make his season debut on Sunday, eight months after breaking his leg.

Players and coaches live in a different world from the rest of us. Big picture concerns are someone else’s problem. Their job is to compete and try to win, so questions about whether it’s a good or bad thing to make the playoffs are so absurd as to be anathema.

"From a coaching perspective, I don’t really understand that," Celtics coach Brad Stevens said. "To me, you try your best to be your best every single day. You have to hold yourself to a certain standard of play and you have to go after it. Everything we do makes us a little more knowledgeable and a little bit better the next day. If you’re not striving to be your best every single day, it’s no fun to coach, it’s no fun to play."

Or, consider the perspective of David West. An 11-year veteran of more than 800 games, West knows the long odds associated with a low playoff berth. He was among the last Pacer players left in the locker room after after their dispiriting loss to the Celtics, which followed an equally agonizing setback to the Nets the day before. As West sat and collected his thoughts, the reality of season that was lost before it even began hung heavily over the room.

"It’s tough, man. We’ve just been too inconsistent and haven’t played well enough," West said. "We’ve lost to two teams we’re fighting with to get in. We had an opportunity to really take control of our own fate these last couple of days and we weren’t able to do it."

"We play hard as a group," he added. "That hasn’t been good enough. We’ve struggled guarding teams that space us. Our defense hasn’t been where it’s needed to be."

The Pacers’ dour mood was in stark contrast to the scene happening across the hall, where Olynyk was explaining how he was able to take the court with a puffed-up eyelid that would have made Quasimodo blush. No one thought he would play, but he somehow scored 19 points on 10 shots.

"It’s kind of like if you’re wearing sunglasses," Olynyk said. "I can see out of the bottom third maybe. There’s a lot of things that if you put your mind to, you can do, that you don’t think you can."

Determination is a wonderful thing. The memories of the We Believe Warriors and the 2011 Grizzlies remain fresh. One never knows when an opportunity will present itself. No one gave the 2012 76ers a chance in hell after drawing the Bulls in the first round, but then Derrick Rose went down and there it was. All of it has made for a fascinating conclusion to a season in which everything seems up for grabs. At least until the postseason begins and reality takes over.

First the disclaimer. I don’t have a Most Valuable Player vote, so this is for amusement purposes only. We’ll do a full awards breakdown next week, but with the MVP race demanding so much attention, here’s one non-voter’s breakdown.

STEPHEN CURRY: I covered a lot of this in last week’s Shootaround, but I’m giving Curry the slight nod because he’s the primary reason why the Warriors are the best team in basketball. Curry has numbers, even if they’re not as eye-popping as others on this list, and he would have even more if his team wasn’t so dominant. That matters less than the ultimate goal, which is helping your team win basketball games. No one does it better than Curry, who is the focal point of the Warriors’ offensive attack and an underrated defender on the top-rated unit in the league.

JAMES HARDEN: This is no disrespect to The Beard, who has had an MVP-worthy season. I would be perfectly content if Harden did win, and the gut-feeling is that he will. The Rockets aren’t even close to a 50-win team without Harden and he’s had to do it without Dwight Howard for most of the season. This season has justified Harden’s place among the best in the game. It’s a spot he earned not only through his uber-efficient offensive game, but also by improving on the defensive end. Let me repeat: James Harden has been amazing and awesome this season. I’m still leaning toward Curry.

RUSSELL WESTBROOK: The numbers are staggering -- more rebounds per game than LeBron, more assists than Curry, same points per game as Harden -- and his play has been inspiring. What drops him out of the top two are the games he missed earlier in the season and his wandering defensive performances. We’re splitting hairs here, but all that matters in this race. If nothing else, let’s hope that this is finally the year when we learned to appreciate Russ for what he is and how he plays.

CHRIS PAUL: It took a while for the most underappreciated superstar in the league to enter the discussion, but his place is fully justified. No one runs a better, crisper offense than CP3. No guard in the discussion is as solid defensively. That he’s had the season he’s had with minimal bench support and the lack of Blake Griffin for 15 games makes his case even stronger. If it sounds like I’m arguing for Paul, well, I am. That I’m ranking him fourth shows how close this vote will be.

LEBRON JAMES: The four-time MVP gets knocked for taking two weeks off in the middle of the season and for picking his spots early in the season while the Cavaliers were struggling. That’s fair, but he’s still played more games than Westbrook and Davis and he’s had an excellent season by any measure. The problem is that LeBron has entered into a new phase of his career, where he’s competing with his own history. That he hasn’t had a vintage LeBron season doesn’t change the fact that he’s still the guy everyone would take first in a one-season draft.

ANTHONY DAVIS: The list of players who compiled a Player Efficiency Rating of 31 or greater in a single season includes Wilt Chamberlain, Michael Jordan, LeBron and now AD. None of those greats accomplished the feat at the age of 21. His time is coming, yet there are concerns over his team’s inability to defend the paint. Is that scheme, or is there still more room for Davis to grow? Probably a little of both. It’s not there yet for Davis, but it will be soon.