The NBA Standings shift in minor ways once again. This time there is a new first place team in the west, while the hottest team in the league was cooled off on Thursday. With not a lot of NBA action on the schedule yesterday, a lot still went down in the standings. Here are the changes as gaps were closed and some were stretched entering Friday.
The Chicago Bulls did it again, this time needing overtime to handle the New York Knicks ending their 13-game winning streak. The final score read 118-111 in favor of the Bulls allowing them to beat another team that was red hot. Suddenly, though the Bulls are in fifth place, they are a team nobody in the East wants to face. Nate Robinson poured 36 points on his former team despite Carmelo Anthony also scoring 36 in the game.
With the victory over the Knicks, the Bulls have defeated the Miami Heat and Brooklyn Nets, three of the four top teams. For some reason, they can't beat the Pacers loosing three of four regular season games against them, but with the way they're playing basketball, it seems like they can beat just about anybody.
Possibly solidifying home court advantage throughout the Western Conference playoffs are the Oklahoma City Thunder. They defeated the sixth place Golden State Warriors 116-97. This spells danger for the San Antonio Spurs. They play four games in 2013, but the Thunder will likely win their last three. Even if the Spurs beat the remainder of their opponents, the Thunder would still clinch the Western Conference's top spot.
As a consequence of the result of this game, the Warriors lead just to just half a game over the Houston Rockets as they are both still fighting for the sixth spot in the West. The Warriors have three games remaining where they can pull their game together to remain in sixth place.
Here's what the standings look like entering Friday as the season is soon coming to a close.
