After two big games Saturday night, the Western Conference Playoff picture is taking shape. Let’s look at where we stand currently, with the Storm still a half-game ahead of the Phoenix Mercury for second place in the West and home court advantage in the first round of the playoffs.

Team            W   L   GB   H/A
--------------------------------
Minnesota      24   7   -    1/2
Seattle        19  13  5.5   2/0
Phoenix        18  13  6.0   2/1
San Antonio    15  16  9.0   1/2
Los Angeles    13  18 11.0   3/0

More telling are the latest results from 500 simulations of the remainder of the season:

Team            W      1     2     3     4   LOT
------------------------------------------------
Minnesota     25.9  1.00   .00   .00   .00   .00
Seattle       20.1   .00   .64   .36   .00   .00
Phoenix       20.0   .00   .36   .64   .00   .00
San Antonio   17.2   .00   .00   .00   .93   .06
Los Angeles   14.9   .00   .00   .00   .07   .93
Tulsa          3.3   .00   .00   .00   .00  1.00

So the obvious note here is that the Storm and the Mercury are now locked into second and third per our simulation. There is a scenario where Phoenix could slip to fourth by losing out with the San Antonio Silver Stars winning out, but our model regards this as impossible because the Mercury’s home game against Tulsa is statistically such a sure thing.

The Storm will definitely finish either second or third and has the inside track on second. A win next Friday against Phoenix would lock it up.

Los Angeles is still alive for fourth. The Sparks will need to beat San Antonio in L.A. on Tuesday and then get some help. The Sparks have a legitimate chance, but it’s going to be tough to make up two games with three to play.

The likely Storm scenarios:

(2) vs. Phoenix (3): 64%
(3) at Phoenix (2): 36%

This entry was posted on Sunday, September 4th, 2011 at 12:04 am and is filed under playoff picture. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.