The NBA season is nearing a close with teams having more than 70 games played this season. And with the season’s end in sight, the NBA playoff picture is becoming more clear. First of all, the Utah Jazz are for sure not going to be in the playoffs, not that anyone thought that they could be, especially with the obvious tanking of games and the sad performance overall. 

Along with the Utah Jazz being eliminated from the playoffs, the Sacramento Kings, Dallas Mavericks, Memphis Grizzlies, New Orleans Pelicans, Indiana Pacers, Brooklyn Nets, and Washington Wizards are also eliminated from the playoffs. 

The best teams to watch and pay attention to their performance are the Oklahoma City Thunder, San Antonio Spurs, Detroit Pistons, and Boston Celtics. And out of that list, Oklahoma City Thunder and the San Antonio Spurs are currently doing the best. With win loss ratios of 62 – 16, and 59 – 19 respectively, which both are at least a 2 game lead ahead of the next team and at least have a 9 game lead against any team in their conference.

The Oklahoma City Thunder is the most recent team to win the NBA championship and was expected to be a successful team this year and many more to come. On the other hand, the San Antonio Spurs were not expected to do well this year, as last year they never even made it to playoffs and were the 3rd worst team in the Western Conference. The Detroit Pistons is another team to look out for in the playoffs, they have clinched the conference number 1 seed, and are also a very talented and competitive team. 

Whilst these are the teams doing the best currently, there are still 20 teams that still have a shot to win the championship, about four regular season games left, and 4 teams to be eliminated before playoffs.