Taxes and Playoff Seedings

Both should be resolved by the end of the night.

With the Lakers beating Utah last night, the 1-8 matchup was determined. Utah will stay at the 8 and open the playoffs against the Lakers. Good luck with that.

I was going to write something explaining how the other 6 seeds might shake out, but, as usual, Hollinger beat me to it. You should read the article; it’s quite good and very informative, with handy charts and all.

So I’ll focus this post (briefly, I hope) on all the possible places for San Antonio. I’ve played out all the possible scenarios for tonight (there are 8) and crunched the numbers. Keep in mind, all my odds are based on the assumption that each game tonight is a 50/50 toss-up, ie, New Orleans has as good a chance of beating us as we do, etc. We all know that’s not true (we should be slightly favored, as should Portland and probably Dallas), but for our sake, let’s pretend.

First off, if we lose, we are the 5 seed. No ifs, ands, or buts about it. And if we lose we have a 75% chance of facing Portland, and a 25% chance of facing Houston. If we win, we can be either the 3, 4, or 5 seed. If we win, we have a 50% chance of seeing Portland and a 50% chance of seeing Dallas.

If we win, we have a 25% chance of being the 5 seed, a 25% chance of being the 4 seed, and a 50% chance of being the 3 seed. I like those odds.

If we’re the 3 seed–which can only occur with a Spurs win and a Houston loss–we will play Dallas, because in that scenario Dallas will have beaten Houston to jump past the New Orleans, who we would have beaten. Overall, there’s only a 25% chance of this happening.

If we’re the 4 seed–which happens with a win, a Portland loss, and a Houston win–we would face Portland with home court advantage. Overall, this only has a 12.5% chance of happening.

If we’re the 5 seed–which happens with a loss, OR if Houston and Portland both win–then we would have an 80% chance of facing Portland, and a 20% chance of facing Houston. There are 5 different scenarios in which this can happen (4 of them include us losing tonight), and, overall, there is a 62.5% chance of this happening.

As for our opponents, there is a 62.5% chance that well face Portland (5 out of 8 scenarios), a 25% chance that we’ll face Dallas (2 out of 8–the two where we are the 3 seed), and a 12.5% chance that we’ll face Houston (1 out of 8).

There is a 37.5% (3 out of 8) chance we’ll have homecourt, and a 62.5% (5 out of 8) chance that we’ll open on the road.

Again, all of these numbers are based on the assumption that New Orleans has a 50/50 shot of beating us tonight. But I think we’ll win; and if we win, we have a 75% chance (3 in 4) of being the 3 or 4 seed with home court advantage.

My ideal scenario is us winning, Houston losing, and Portland winning. This gives us the 3 seed against Dallas. And this puts Portland as the 4 seed against Houston as the 5 seed, giving the Blazers home court over Houston. I don’t want to face Portland in the first round (for purely selfish reasons as I’d like to not have to root against my hometown team), and I want Portland to have homecourt against a tough Rockets team.

Thank God all of this will be settled tonight. Enjoy the game, and let’s get ready for the playoffs.