Basketball Predictions - 31 Mar

Upset picks are in italics.

NBA

Milwaukee at Atlanta - Bucks by 11.5
Dallas at Oklahoma City - Thunder by 7
LA Lakers at New Orleans - Pelicans by 3.5
Sacramento at San Antonio - Spurs by 4.5
Washington at Denver - Nuggets by 8.5
Charlotte at Golden State - Warriors by 9
Memphis at LA Clippers - Clippers by 6

NCAA

(5) Auburn vs. (2) Kentucky - Wildcats by 2
(2) Michigan State vs. (1) Duke - Blue Devils by 0.5

Results

NBA: 6-3 (.667) 745-399 overall (.651)
Upsets: 0-2 (.000) 68-83 overall (.450)
NCAA: 1-1 (.500) 46-16 overall (.742)

NBA Rankings - 30 Mar

There are less than 2 weeks left in the NBA regular season, and teams are fighting for playoff positioning. The hottest team of the last 2 weeks has been the Jazz, who won 7 of 8, though only one of those was against a probable playoff team. They had the toughest strength of schedule for most of the season, so it's finally balancing out a bit, and they won most of those games (6) by double digits. The coldest team has been Oklahoma City, who won only twice in 7 games, and has now won only 7 of their past 20 games and it now projected as the #8 seed. Here are my full current rankings and playoff picks:

				Rec		Proj
TW	LW	Team	Rating	W	L	W	L	MOV	SOS	PO Seed
1	1	Milwaukee	-7.776	57	19	62	20	1	30	E1
2	2	Golden State	-4.996	51	24	56	26	4	11	W1
3	4	Utah	-4.934	46	30	50	32	2	18	W5
4	3	Toronto	-4.477	53	23	57	25	3	27	E2
5	5	Portland	-4.17	48	27	52	30	5	14	W3
6	9	Houston	-3.687	48	28	52	30	7	5	W4
7	6	Denver	-3.445	51	24	55	27	6	17	W2
8	8	Boston	-2.799	45	31	49	33	8	28	E5
9	7	Oklahoma City	-2.712	44	32	48	34	11	15	W8
10	10	Philadelphia	-2.332	48	27	52	30	10	25	E3
11	11	Indiana	-2.234	45	31	49	33	9	26	E4
12	12	San Antonio	-1.622	44	32	48	34	12	9	W7
13	13	LA Clippers	-1.094	45	31	48	34	13	8	W6
14	15	Detroit	0.1595	38	37	42	40	14	19	E6
15	16	Orlando	0.2734	37	39	40	42	15	21
16	19	Miami	0.4939	37	38	40	42	16	23	E7
17	17	Sacramento	0.6192	37	38	40	42	17	16
18	18	Minnesota	1.1809	34	41	37	45	19	6
19	14	New Orleans	1.3129	32	45	35	47	21	7
20	20	Brooklyn	1.4031	38	38	40	42	18	29	E8
21	21	Charlotte	1.7081	35	40	38	44	20	24
22	22	Dallas	1.8378	29	46	32	50	22	2
23	25	LA Lakers	2.3144	34	42	36	46	23	13
24	23	Memphis	2.5995	30	45	33	49	25	4
25	24	Washington	3.02	31	46	33	49	24	20
26	26	Atlanta	5.759	27	49	28	54	26	22
27	27	Chicago	7.1425	21	55	23	59	27	10
28	28	Phoenix	8.0674	17	59	19	63	29	1
29	30	Cleveland	8.3161	19	57	20	62	28	12
30	29	New York	8.983	14	61	16	66	30	3

Playoff Picks

First Round

(1) Bucks over (8) Nets
(2) Raptors over (7) Heat
(3) 76ers over (6) Pistons
(5) Celtics over (4) Pacers
(1) Warriors over (8) Thunder
(2) Nuggets over (7) Spurs
(3) Trail Blazers over (6) Clippers
(5) Jazz over (4) Rockets

Second Round

(1) Bucks over (5) Celtics
(2) Raptors over (3) 76ers
(5) Jazz over (1) Warriors
(3) Trail Blazers over (2) Nuggets

Conference Finals

(1) Bucks over (2) Raptors
(5) Jazz over (3) Trail Blazers

NBA Finals

(1) Bucks over (5) Jazz