If you missed the Phoenix Suns' critical matchup with the Clippers on Tuesday night, don't worry, so did the Suns. Phoenix had everything to play for, and fans who showed up for Fan Appreciation Night at the final home game of the regular season probably expected a performance worthy of the six seed, or at least the bare minimum of a basketball game, but they got neither of those. Despite playing without Kawhi Leonard and James Harden, the Clippers annihilated the Suns, racing out to a 35-4 first quarter lead, taking a satisfying 66-33 lead into halftime, then falling backwards throughout the second half and still winning by 13.
Putrid basketball like that is typical of early April. By Game 79, most legs are leaden, most attention-spans worn out, most playoff seedings settled; everyone is looking forward to whatever relief awaits in a week, whether that's postseason basketball or the respite of the offseason. Not so much this year. The parity that defined the 2022-23 season is even more pronounced this year: Basically only the Celtics at one in the East, the Clippers at four in the West, and the Bulls and Hawks at nine and ten in the East are locked in. That means 16 teams still have something to keep playing for this late in the season, which is extremely unusual. The thick middle of the Eastern Conference is the most topsy-turvy, with the second-place Bucks and eighth-place Heat separated by four games, but they and all the teams between are real actual NBA teams and should not have to seriously worry about defeating whichever group of ding-dongs climbs out of the nine-ten toilet to make the playoffs.
