Securing the West's top seed means avoiding a brutal back-to-back against Denver and San Antonio, giving the Thunder a strategic playoff advantage.
Will the the NBA's defending champs manage to hold off the San Antonio Spurs and remain the #1 seed in the West?
That is the biggest and most important question for the Oklahoma City Thunder over the last 26 games of the season.
OKC is 42-14 at the All-Star Break. That's best in the West by 3 games over the #2 seed Spurs. Two caveats: San Antonio owns the tiebreaker and is only two games back in the loss column. And it's technically the best record in the league due to two more wins giving OKC a half game lead over the Detroit Pistons, though the East's top seed beats the Thunder by a few percentage points.
But I'd argue that claiming the #1 overall seed is not as big of a concern for Oklahoma City as securing the Western Conference's top spot. Sure, it would be nice to have homecourt advantage throughout the playoffs. Certainly, OKC benefited from that very thing last season en route to winning an NBA championship. That series against the Indiana Pacers may end differently had there been a Game 7 in Gainbridge Fieldhouse instead of The Paycom Center. But worrying about the Eastern Conference winner is a cross that bridge when you get to it type of concern. The Pacers were the #4 seed last year. The field, including the New York Knicks, Boston Celtics and Cleveland Cavaliers, has a strong case to be picked over the Pistons to reach the NBA Finals. And the Thunder should easily finish with a better record than those squads without breaking much of a sweat.
There is one crucial reason, however, why OKC should go all out to finish atop the West. Simply put, the Thunder do not want to have to play both the Denver Nuggets and the Spurs. And as a bonus penalty, the latter would be at a homecourt disadvantage.
The consensus around the NBA before the season started was that the Thunder and Nuggets were the two best teams in the league. That opinion largely remains the same at the All-Star Break. A rematch of last year's West Semifinals would be a clash of the titans.
The Spurs, though, won the season series 4-1 over the Thunder. While the last game featured only OKC reserves and the previous game was a decisive Thunder win, those first three games proved San Antonio was legitimate. A playoff series between these two young, talented teams would be a battle of present and future heavyweights.
And that's precisely why the Thunder should do all they can to finish the the #1 seed in the West for the third straight season. They don't want to take on two top tier contenders back to back. Let the Spurs and Nuggets beat each other up for 7 games and welcome the winner out to Oklahoma City instead.