Remember all those tight races in the Eastern and Western conferences last season? If you can't, don't worry, because they're taking place once more. With the regular season approaching its final month of games, a glance at the standings shows several thistight conference and divisional races. In the Western Conference's Northwest Division, one-half game separates the top three teams Utah (41-24), Portland (40-24) and Denver (41-25). The top four teams in the Southwest Division -- San Antonio (43-20), Houston (42-24), New Orleans (40-23) and Dallas (40-25) -- are separated by four games.
On this date last season, only 3 1/2 games stood between those same four Southwest teams, with the same one-through-four order -- San Antonio (44-19), Houston (43-20), New Orleans (42-20) and Dallas (41-23).
Also, on this date last season, Boston was 50-20 and attempting to fend off Detroit 46-17, which trailed the Celtics by 4 1/2 games, for the top seed in the Eastern Conference, while in the Western Conference, the Los Angeles Lakers (45-19) had a one-half game lead over San Antonio (44-19), and only five games stood between the first and eight seeds.
The top seed in the East is up for grabs, again, with 3 1/2 games separating Cleveland (50-13), Boston (49-16) and Orlando (47-17). And in jostling for seeding position in the Western Conference, Houston, the current third seed, has only a 1 1/2-game lead over Dallas, which is currently the eighth seed.
Stats & Stuff
The Los Angeles Lakers rank first in the NBA in scoring (108.3 ppg), while Golden State ranks second (108.0 ppg). Since moving to L.A., the Lakers have led the NBA in scoring four times (1965-66, 1971-72, 1985-86, 1997-98). Additionally, the Lakers rank third in point differential, winning by an average of 7.9 points.
On March 16 at Oklahoma City, San Antonio coach Gregg Popovich will become the 24th head coach in NBA history to have coached in 1,000 games. He is the third winningest coach at the 1,000-game mark (672-322), trailing only Phil Jackson (721-279) and Pat Riley (716-284).
Popovich's .676 regular season winning percentage ranks third all time, sitting behind Jackson (.704) and Billy Cunningham (.698). Miami's Dwyane Wade, who scored 32 points in Miami's 107-99 win over Boston last night, broke his own franchise record by reaching double digits in scoring for the 79th straight game, and tied another team mark with his 20th straight game scoring at least 20 points.
Wade's 9,439 career points leave him 21 shy of passing Alonzo Mourning to become the Heat's all-time scoring leader ... By virtue of last night's win, the Heat owns a 20-game improvement over last season, besting the previous franchise record for biggest improvement in a season of 19 during the 1996-97 (61-21) season following the 1995-96 season when Miami registered a 42-40 mark. The Heat is the 23rd team to win at least 20 more games from one season to the next.
Phoenix's Shaquille O'Neal ranks sixth all time in career scoring with 27,322 points. Moses Malone is next on the list with 27,409 points. Based on his current scoring average of 18.2 points, O'Neal will need five games to pass Malone for fifth place. Wilt Chamberlain ranks fourth all time with 31,419 points.
Charlotte's Raymond Felton is averaging 17.3 points and 9.0 assists over his last four games, recording back-to-back double-doubles on March 6-7. Felton has averaged 15.4 points and 7.8 assists over the 17 games played since the start of February. On the season, Felton is averaging 13.9 points and 6.8 assists in 64 games (63 starts). Milwaukee's Charlie Villanueva is averaging career highs in points (16.7 ppg; previous high is 13.0 ppg), rebounds (6.9 rpg; 6.4 rpg), and assists (1.9 apg; 1.1 apg). His average of 26.9 minutes is the second-highest total of his career (29.1 mpg).
In the 47 games that the Los Angeles Clippers' Eric Gordon has started, he is averaging 18.5 points, 3.0 rebounds and 3.1 assists while shooting 46 percent from the field and 39 percent from three-point land. In the first 13 games of the year when Gordon came off the bench, he averaged 4.5 points, 1.0 rebounds, 1.3 assists in 13.6 minutes per game.
Today's Quote
ERIK SPOELSTRA, on Dwyane Wade:
"He's got an incredible will to win. You hear people throw that out there, not really sure what that means. But it's an absolute will to impact every possession to help the team win."
Miami Herald, March 12, 2009
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