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Kevin Durant and the Houston Rockets at present sit third in a aggressive Western Conference.
• NBA Playoff Picture
MIAMI (AP) — Kevin Durant has been within the NBA for 18 seasons, 19 counting the one he missed whereas recovering from an Achilles tear. And in lots of these seasons, there have been clear favorites within the race to make the NBA Finals when the calendar flipped to March.
It doesn’t really feel that method this season.
Things appear vast open, with a slew of very life like title contenders in each conferences. And Durant — a part of a Houston Rockets workforce that seems to be a kind of contending golf equipment — isn’t complaining about it, both.
“Thank God for second aprons and the first aprons,” Durant mentioned.
Hard to think about these phrases being mentioned a number of years in the past, however right here we’re. And with the present collective bargaining settlement and aprons — payroll ranges that, if exceeded, severely restrict a workforce’s choices on participant motion and acquisition — Durant’s stance is hard to argue towards.
Detroit (in all probability unexpectedly) and defending champion Oklahoma City (as anticipated) have separated themselves a bit atop the Eastern and Western conferences. The second-place groups proper now — Boston within the East, San Antonio within the West — need to be thought-about surprises on some stage, given how the Celtics haven’t had Jayson Tatum and the way the Spurs haven’t received a playoff collection since Victor Wembanyama was 13.
Would it shock anybody if the Pistons, the Celtics, or New York or Cleveland emerged from the East? Probably not. Would it shock anybody if the Thunder, the Spurs, Houston, Minnesota or Denver survived the playoff gauntlet within the West? Again, in all probability not. And be at liberty so as to add a number of different groups to these lists as effectively.
Durant was requested in regards to the wide-open really feel to this title race over the weekend. His eyes lit up.
“We wanted some parity and I think the last few years we’ve gotten exactly that,” he mentioned. “I mean, it’s fun for everybody watching the game, not knowing exactly who’s going to be around at the end of the season. And as a team, it gives you confidence to know that even though you don’t play your best ball around this time, nobody really is. … Teams are trying to figure out which lineups they want to use, (after) trades, all of that stuff, so it’s a fun time to be in the league.”
Fun. That’s an attention-grabbing selection of phrases proper now.
The West is brutally powerful, as nearly at all times appears to be the case. Houston began Monday in third, simply two losses forward of the sixth-place Los Angeles Lakers, simply 3 1/2 video games forward of seventh-place Phoenix. On that facet of the league, as has been the case in every of the final two seasons, a .600 profitable proportion within the common season in all probability received’t even be adequate to ensure home-court benefit in Round 1 of the playoffs.
Fun?
“I don’t know if fun’s the word,” Rockets coach Ime Udoka mentioned. “You try to handle your own business and take care of yourself and be playing the right way and try to get healthy, healthier, as healthy as you can be going into the playoffs. You can’t afford to have off nights in our conference. You can go from 3 to 7 pretty quickly.”
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and the defending champion Oklahoma City Thunder stay atop the Western Conference standings heading into the stretch run of the common season.
The Thunder are nonetheless heavy favorites to win the title, nearly even-money (+150) in accordance with Bet MGM Sportsbook, with the Nuggets (+700) and Spurs (+750). Cleveland is a slight favourite to win the East, adopted by Boston and Detroit.
But that is the NBA’s parity period — seven franchises have received titles within the final seven years, a run by no means earlier than seen in league historical past. It’s not inconceivable to suppose an eighth totally different champion is on the way in which. Durant clearly hopes the Rockets would be the subsequent title on that listing, and there’s no scarcity of groups that suppose they’ll make title runs as effectively.
Believe it or not, the playoffs begin subsequent month. The closing 20 video games are about positioning for some groups, constructing momentum for others, and all with the aim of determining what works greatest when the video games imply probably the most.
“You never know who can make a run in the playoffs,” Durant mentioned. “We’re looking forward to using these games to continue to get better and keep growing and we’ll see what happens.”
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