Like most basketball fans, my attention at this time of the year has a tendency to be focused squarely on March Madness, but there’s this little thing called the NBA regular season that is still going on (who knew?) and there are several teams involved a heated race for the playoffs that start in mid-April.

EASTERN CONFERENCE

ESPN’s John Hollinger says that there are six Eastern Conference teams that have better than a 99% chance of earning a playoff spot this year: Cleveland, Boston, Orlando and Atlanta, who are all at 100%, along with Miami and Philadelphia.

Right now, Hollinger gives the Bulls (90%) and the Pistons (89%) the inside track for the last two spots in the East. There are four teams — Charlotte (9%), Indiana (7%), New Jersey (5%) and Milwaukee (3%) — that are varying degrees of longshots to earn a final spot. They’re sitting at 30 or 31 wins, three or four wins behind Chicago or Detroit, so with about 10 games remaining, it’s conceivable that the Bulls or Pistons could collapse and one or more of these teams could get hot.

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Yesterday, we took a look at John Hollinger’s Eastern Conference playoff odds. Today we’ll look at the Western Conference.

1. LA Lakers (100)
2. Phoenix (96.5)
3. Portland (96.3)
4. Denver (93.8)
5. Utah (88.6)
6. New Orleans (81.1)
7. Dallas (80.6)
8. Houston (78.1)
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9. Golden State (34.4)
10. Memphis (20.3)
11. San Antonio (19.9)
12. Sacramento (7.7)
13. Minnesota (2.6)
14. L.A. Clippers (0.1)
15. Oklahoma City (0.0)

He looks like he has the West pegged save for one big problem. I don’t see how the Mavericks – who are 5-7 at full strength – will make the playoffs but the Spurs – who are 5-6 and missing two of their three best players – will not. Hollinger’s formula is probably heavily mathematical, so he can’t account for injuries, and that’s part of the problem with taking a pure statistical approach to something like this. Tony Parker is due back in mid-December, while Ginobili is ahead of schedule and should be back a bit earlier. The Spurs are getting good play from George Hill and Roger Mason, and if they can stay near .500, they shouldn’t have a problem making the playoffs if Parker and Ginobili come back strong.

As for the Mavericks, barring a major injury to one of the other eight teams (including the Spurs), I don’t see how they make the postseason. Denver’s 8-4 record seems a little odd, but they are getting good play from Chauncey Billups, who has changed the team’s attitude defensively.

Even without Monta Ellis, Golden State has surprisingly kept its head above water, and if the Warriors can stay close to .500 until January (when Ellis is set to return), they would be a dark horse to make the playoffs.