Houston Rockets' fizzle helps hot Phoenix Suns - Tucson Citizen

How fast can teams go from good to bad in the NBA playoff race?

Just ask the Houston Rockets, whom the Suns edged past in the playoff-seeding chase with a victory over Portland on Monday night.

Only a week earlier, the Rockets were in sixth place in the Western Conference standings and looking like a solid playoff club.

Four consecutive losses later, the Rockets have the same record as the eighth-place Suns and are ninth by virtue of tiebreakers.

Of course the Suns, who host the Oklahoma City Thunder Wednesday night, are just happy to be in the skirmish for playoff positions after a horrendous start to the season and then a knee injury to their lock-down defender Grant Hill in the midst of their playoff push.

“It’s a blessing for one,” Suns swingman Jared Dudley said. “People had us for dead (at the) beginning of the season, middle of the season, All-Star break.

“And we’ve worked our butts off. We’ve played through it. Guys have learned their roles, and I think we’re ready to do it.”

The Suns have won seven of their past 10 games to get above that bold, black line in the Western Conference standings. They split with the Rockets in their season series but have the advantage in the second tiebreaker with a better record against Western Conference opponents.

And if the Suns finish in a tie with Houston in the overall standings, the Rockets cannot make up the difference in conference record.

The Suns also have the tiebreaker advantage on Utah, which is a half game behind Phoenix and Houston. However, Utah has the tiebreaker on Houston. If all of that isn’t clear, don’t worry. It will only get crazier as the teams battle toward the wire.

Any way one adds it up, Wednesday night’s NBA calendar is huge in the Western Conference race.

The Thunder are battling San Antonio for the best conference record with an eye on the Eastern Conference standings for homecourt advantage in an NBA Finals matchup.

For the Suns, it’s the first of three games in four nights â€" all against teams ahead of them.

Hill’s availability for Wednesday night will depend on how he feels Wednesday after the morning shoot-around.

Meanwhile, the Rockets Wednesday night visit the defending champion Mavericks, who have dropped to seventh in the West, and the fourth-place Clippers visit the sixth-place Denver Nuggets.

Familiar ring

The Rockets and the Jazz are sounding an awful lot like the Suns in recent weeks as they tried to reel in teams ahead of them.

“Right now, we just got to win every game, no excuse,” Utah’s Al Jefferson told reporters. “We just got to see where our heart is, and I know everybody in the locker room wants to make the playoffs.”

Houston’s Luis Scola told reporters the Rockets “just blew our margin for error, and the season is now four games shorter” after a fourth loss in a row.

“We’re still there,” he said. ” … It really hurts because we could have been clinching the playoffs right now. . . . Instead we are just seeing what’s going to happen with Phoenix to see if we’re going to get in the playoffs or not.”

Priorities

Oklahoma City star Kevin Durant said it’s not a priority to catch Kobe Bryant for a third consecutive NBA scoring title.

Durant needs 160 points â€" a 32-point average â€" in Oklahoma City’s final five games to catch Bryant, assuming that the Lakers standout does not return from a shin injury during the remainder of the regular season.

Bryant’s 28.1 points a game leads the NBA.

“That’s the farthest thing from my mind,” Durant told The Oklahoman. “I just want to keep being efficient, that’s what it’s about. Doesn’t matter if I have 21 points or 30 points, I want to be efficient.”

Tiebreakers

The Suns officially control their destiny entering tonight’s game, but if there are tiebreakers in play for playoff spots, here are the scenarios (and we’re not ready to take on a potential four-team tie just yet).

Two-team ties:

Suns would win head-to-head tiebreakers over Houston and Utah but would lose to Dallas and Denver.

Three-way ties, Suns with:

Utah and Denver, Suns win.

Houston and Utah, Suns win.

Houston and Denver, Denver wins.

Dallas and any third team, Dallas wins.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 17th, 2012 at 10:44 pm and is filed under Arizona Republic News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.