NBA

NBA Playoff Race Update: The Milwaukee Bucks Punch Their Ticket

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Western Conference - Sure Things

(1) Golden State Warriors (44-19, 100.0%)
(2) Denver Nuggets (42-21, 100.0%)
(3) Oklahoma City Thunder
(39-24, 100.0%)
(4) Portland Trail Blazers (39-24, 99.8%)
(5) Houston Rockets
(38-25, 99.2%)
(6) Utah Jazz
(36-27, 98.7%)

The Trail Blazers, Rockets, and Jazz all jump up into the "sure things" tier this week, now that the sixth-place Jazz have a comfortable four-game lead on the ninth-place Kings.

The Warriors and Nuggets are pretty well in a tier of their own here, with three games separating the Nuggets from third-place Oklahoma City. After that, the Thunder, Trail Blazers, Rockets, are all within a game of each other.

There could be plenty of shuffling within this tier going forward, but it would take a collapse of epic proportions for any of them to fall out of the playoff picture altogether.