The Timberwolves lost to the Suns by double-digits for the second time in as many trips to Phoenix this season with Friday’s 97-87 defeat.
So, obviously, the Wolves don’t want to play the Suns in the first round of the Western Conference playoffs.
But then there are the Pelicans, who, in the two meetings between the two teams that featured Zion Williamson, also beat the Wolves by double figures. You don’t want to see them in Round 1, either.
Then there’s the Dallas Mavericks. The only time the Wolves played against the dynamic duo of Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving, they dropped a close one in Texas. So, surely that’s not a desirable Western Conference quarterfinal opponent.
And the Lakers — Sunday’s opponent in Los Angeles — I mean, who would want to see LeBron James and Anthony Davis early in any postseason run?
The reality is, in the NBA’s stacked Western Conference, you can talk yourself into any team likely outside of Sacramento — which has beaten Minnesota twice at Target Center this season, but lost two key guards in Kevin Huerter and Malik Monk to injury for the season — as the team you don’t want to face in the first round of the playoffs.
Because they’re all good, and they all present certain challenges. Even the Warriors, for all their struggles at various points of this season, are going to win maybe 46 games. For reference, the Kings were the No. 3 seed a year ago with just 48 victories. Oh, and the Warriors obviously have Steph Curry.
Everyone is good.
Which makes it impossible to attempt to properly position yourself for a potential postseason run. Because there is no way to maneuver yourself in the standings to perfectly chart your path forward. One way or another, you’re going to face a worthy adversary from the get-go in the West playoffs.
You can’t even begin to try to pick the lesser of all the evils given how jumbled everyone is in the standings. The Wolves, who entered Saturday’s action as the No. 1 seed by virtue of a tiebreaker over Denver, could still finish anywhere from No. 1 to No. 3 in the West with five games to play.
But teams No. 5-9 are separated by just three games. So you might think you want to fall back to No. 3 to face Phoenix in Round 1, only to have New Orleans finish strong to show up at Target Center’s doorstep for Game 1 of the postseason.
So there’s really no use in sweating potential circumstances. The variance of it all may help explain why Oklahoma City seemingly has accepted the No. 3 seed. The Thunder have lost three straight games, with star guards Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Jaylen Williams sitting out of all three.
Perhaps there isn’t a difference between No. 1 or No. 3. In the first round, that may be true. But the advantage for the top seed would seem to come in the later rounds of the postseason. The playoffs may prove otherwise, but the top three teams in the West appear to be Minnesota, Denver and Oklahoma City. By finishing with the top seed, you automatically leave the other two to duel it out in the conference semifinals while you get a seemingly lesser foe that round.
And then, of course, the No. 1 seed gets the bonus of home-court advantage throughout the entirety of the West playoffs. Perhaps that’s what is motivating the Wolves to such a high degree to chase as many wins as possible.
The No. 1 seed is the surest way to give yourself a maximum advantage once playoffs begin. So that’s what the Wolves will continue to gun for, potential matchup issues be darned.
Because it’s possible those are overread based on regular-season results, anyway.
“You can only take it for what it’s worth at this point,” Wolves guard Mike Conley told reporters Friday. “(The Suns have) beat us pretty bad the first two times they played us, and I’ve been in seasons where we beat teams — swept teams — and won convincingly (in the regular season) and then lose in the playoffs, just because in the playoffs, matchups change. People throw different things out, and we figure something out, or they figure something out, those things matter.
“We can’t really be thinking about that as far as being a situation we want to avoid or something like that. I think we’ll be ready, and I think we’ll have to make those adjustments with whoever we play.”
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