The Eastern Conference has no less than 6 (CHI, MIL, NJN, NYK, CHA, and IND) teams battling it out for the 8th and final playoff spot, although they are all well below .500. The team in 8th seems to change almost nightly, and there is quite a bit of jockeying in the top and middle seeds as well. Numbers 1 though 3 (CLE, BOS, and ORL) are separated by four games, and 4 through 7 ( ATL, MIA, DET, and PHI) are separated by 5. Really the only two teams out of the playoff race are TOR and WAS, and everyone else is either in the fighting to be in or fighting for a better spot as nobody has a spot locked in.

I'm sure everyone here is most aware of the Western Conference playoff race, but I'll recap anyway.  LAL have pretty much sealed the 1 spot, and hopefully they pull a Dallas in the first round for it! But after that it gets very murky as there are still 8 good teams fighting for the last 7 spots. Right now PHX is on the outside looking in while being 4 games over .500, but 5 games back of the 8th spot as they've been on a skid winning 3 of their last 10. DAL in 8th is only 4.5 games back from SAS who are in 2nd, so these standings will be very fluid right up until the end of the season in all liklihood. In addition to this a top 4 seed is guaranteed to the winner of the NW division, which is anything but decided as POR, DEN and UTA are within a half game of eachother (DEN and POR tied + play the final game of their seasons against eachother).

Now my fine fellow bedgers, I ask which race would you find the most exciting  if the Blazers were not competing for a playoff spot in one of them? (poll included but please feel free to elaborate below)