Utah Jazz playoffs

The NBA doesn’t offer the same hopes for Cinderella darkhorse postseason runs that college basketball does—unless you want to count Dallas winning it last year as the #3 seed in the West, which is about as big as a shock as you usually get. But the last time a compressed schedule was played was in 1999 and that was a year when everything blew up in the playoffs, and the 8th-seeded New York Knicks made the Finals. So perhaps we should pay attention to those races at the bottom for the last playoff berths and the jousting in the middle for homecourt advantage in the opening round.