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We’ve into the final month of the NBA regular season and there are only three weeks left until the play-in tournament begins on May 18. Heading into Monday night, May 3, there are 8 games on the NBA schedule with plenty of standings implications in both conferences. The two big matchups are in the West with the Golden State Warriors (9th place) taking on the New Orleans Pelicans (11th) and the Denver Nuggets (3rd) and Los Angeles Lakers (6th) battling it out.
Here we’re going to recap the important games and go over how it impacts the playoff picture in each conference.
Curry scores 41 points in blowout win over Pelicans
The Golden State Warriors (33-32) are still looking to move up in the Western Conference and got one step closer to the top eight with a 123-108 win over the New Orleans Pelicans (29-36). Stephen Curry poured in a game-high 41 points on 14-of-26 shooting. Draymond Green also chipped in with a triple-double in the victory. The Dubs aren’t far from the eighth-seeded Memphis Grizzlies (32-31). The seventh-seeded Los Angeles Lakers (36-28) are 3.5 games ahead of the Warriors and might be out of reach, but the eighth spot isn’t. The Pelicans have a lot of work to do to reduce the three-game lead the catch the 10th-seeded San Antonio Spurs (31-32) have on them.
Westbrook tallies 24 assists in win over Pacers
The Wizards (30-35) are making a play at the 7 or 8 seed in the East. Washington pulled off another win, 154-141 over the Indiana Pacers (30-34) on Monday night. The Wizards are in 10th place but are 0.5 games off the Pacers in 9th. If the season ended now, Washington would be facing Indiana in the play-in tournament. The O/U of 246 points got absolutely smashed with a total close to 300. The Wizards also covered and were seeing most of the ML action prior to the game.
Hawks take down Trail Blazers
The Atlanta Hawks keep on rolling with another win on Monday night. Atlanta took down the Portland Trail Blazers 123-114 behind 28 off the bench from Danilo Gallinari. Gallo and Bogdan Bogdanovic combined to shoot 14-of-24 from 3-point range. Dame dropped 33 for the Blazers, who are back down in 7th place alone at 36-29, 0.5 game behind the Dallas Mavericks and Los Angeles Lakers in the standings. The Hawks are alone in 4th place in the East with a 1.0 game lead over the New York Knicks, who are facing the Memphis Grizzlies right now.