It’s official
April 6th, 2008 by 
Basketball John
[UPDATE]: ESPN still hasn’t marked the Jazz as clinching a playoff spot yet. NBA.com has though.
The Jazz are back in the playoffs. WIth the Warriors losing to NO today, the Jazz are now 5 games ahead of them with just 5 games left and own the tie-breakers.
The Jazz are looking like they’re going to be the fourth seed. They still are 1/2 game back of the Suns and Rockets for home-court advantage. And they’re still 1 1/2 games behind the Lakers and Spurs. But barring a collapse by either of those teams, the Jazz aren’t likely to move up.
But being the fourth seed does have the potential of a second round matchup against either NO or (GS/Denver). I like our chances if we make it that far.
Up next, clinching our second consecutive NW Division title. But more importantly, we need home-court in the first round.
Who you’re cheering for today; DAL over PHX, POR over SA, Kings over Lakers, SEA over Denver, and the Clippers over Houston.
Posted in Playoffs | 
April 6th, 2008 at 2:31 pm
technically, we’re only up 4 1/2 on Denver, so we haven’t clinched yet. It’s inevitable though.
April 6th, 2008 at 3:03 pm
Holy crap, did you see what the Mavs did to the Suns in the 4th Q? Looks familiar…
April 6th, 2008 at 3:08 pm
For the division title, yes. But just for the playoffs, we’re up 5 games on GS with only 5 games left. So even if we lost out and they won out, we’d be in.
Other good news, PHX just choked in the fourth and lost to Dallas. One down, three more games to go tonight.
April 6th, 2008 at 3:10 pm
Just missed your post. Great news.
April 6th, 2008 at 3:22 pm
SO, guess who I met last night?? And this time it was a total unplanned. I’ll post about it on my blog later.
April 6th, 2008 at 3:27 pm
Given the Suns loss, the Jazz are still 5th place (record-wise) in the West, with the #4 team (therefore the team having homecourt against the Jazz) being … the Rockets.
April 6th, 2008 at 3:30 pm
Even so, Utah officially controls its own destiny as far as home court is concerned. Granted, I’m not counting on them winning out, but it’s nice that they don’t require anything from anyone else, at least for the moment.
Also, it’s nice to see that Dallas didn’t actually play all that great, but it was mostly the Suns choking enormously. Hopefully they’ll fall apart and Houston will stay ahead of them.
April 6th, 2008 at 4:00 pm
Still waiting…
April 6th, 2008 at 4:01 pm
Just ran all the numbers, looks like that’s all right. ESPN doesn’t have us locked in yet, that’s what got me questioning. If the Clippers pull off a miracle tonight, then we control our own destiny for homecourt. Even though Houston is a half game back (until tonight) we still play them and if we win we’ll make up a game on them and secure the tiebreaker.
April 6th, 2008 at 5:52 pm
Yeah, I’ve been checking on that too. Some more ESPN bias :).
April 6th, 2008 at 6:05 pm
Not just ESPN… Yahoo! doesn’t show it either.
April 6th, 2008 at 6:06 pm
Sorry it took a while, but it’s up now!
April 6th, 2008 at 6:24 pm
Great stuff. I’ve got it up now, http://www.basketballjohn.com/2008/04/06/guess-who-i-met/
April 6th, 2008 at 9:30 pm
Hey, I know it’s late, but have ya’ll seen the score for the Denver-Seattle game? The Sonics beat the Thuggets 151-147. That’s excellent for us!
April 7th, 2008 at 9:35 am
ESPN has us locked now.