{"id":709271,"date":"2026-04-12T22:49:35","date_gmt":"2026-04-12T22:49:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/709271\/"},"modified":"2026-04-12T22:49:35","modified_gmt":"2026-04-12T22:49:35","slug":"what-matters-for-thunder-rockets-timberwolves-suns-in-western-conference-playoff-standings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/709271\/","title":{"rendered":"What matters for Thunder, Rockets, Timberwolves, Suns in Western Conference playoff standings"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Western Conference didn’t save a whole ton of drama for the final day of the NBA regular season.<\/p>\n

The Oklahoma City Thunder<\/a> and Phoenix Suns<\/a> play in a game that could’ve had a lot of meaning.<\/p>\n

The Houston Rockets<\/a> and Minnesota Timberwolves<\/a> are also in action Sunday night in spots that aren’t as exciting as they could’ve been.<\/p>\n

MORE:\u00a0LeBron James’ dunking stats are insane this season<\/a><\/p>\n

What matters in Thunder-Suns game?<\/p>\n

This game actually doesn’t matter one bit in the Western Conference standings.<\/p>\n

The OKC Thunder are locked in to the conference’s No. 1 seed.<\/p>\n

The Suns are going to be the 7-seed no matter what. They’ll host the 7-8 play-in game later this week.<\/p>\n

What matters in Timberwolves-Pelicans?<\/p>\n

Minnesota can’t actually move. They’re stuck as the 6-seed.<\/p>\n

The Pelicans<\/a>‘ lottery odds can shift just a tad based on a win or a loss.<\/p>\n

What matters in Rockets-Grizzlies?<\/p>\n

Houston also can’t move. The Rockets are locked into the 5-seed.<\/p>\n

The Grizzlies<\/a> also can change lottery position a bit depending on a win or a loss.<\/p>\n

More basketball news:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Western Conference didn’t save a whole ton of drama for the final day of the NBA regular…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":709272,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3782],"tags":[7,307,152,3954,6,308],"class_list":{"0":"post-709271","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-minnesota-timberwolves","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-minnesota","10":"tag-minnesota-timberwolves","11":"tag-minnesotatimberwolves","12":"tag-nba","13":"tag-timberwolves"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116394182017303680","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/709271","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=709271"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/709271\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/709272"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=709271"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=709271"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=709271"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}