Thunder Clinch NBA’s Best Record, Sending Ripple Effects Through the West

The Oklahoma City Thunder have solidified the best record in the NBA and the No. 1 seed in the Western Conference with their win over the LA Clippers on Wednesday night. And that will send ripple effects throughout the NBA in multiple ways.

San Antonio, which had been chasing the Thunder over the last several months, is now locked into the No. 2 seed and no longer has anything to play for in the standings. That has a downstream impact on the Nuggets, who are battling the Lakers and Rockets for the No. 3 seed, because Denver still has games left against both the Thunder and the Spurs, two teams that are now locked into their playoff positioning and have no real need to play their primary guys the rest of the way. A pair of games projected to be extremely difficult may now be easy wins.

So this is a big event that will have major impacts on how the rest of the Western Conference standings shake out. But it is also a huge deal for the Thunder in particular, because it guarantees home-court advantage for as long as Oklahoma City remains alive in the playoffs.

That was the case last year, too, and it ended up being a major factor in Oklahoma City winning a championship. In the Thunder’s second-round series against the Denver Nuggets, the series went seven games, and Oklahoma City dominated nearly every meaningful minute at home. The fact that the series-clinching game was in Oklahoma City mattered, and the Thunder won it in dominant fashion, just as you would expect from a team that plays so well in front of its own crowd.

Then again in the Finals against the Indiana Pacers, Game 7 was in Oklahoma City, and the Thunder played extremely well at home in that series and closed it out to win the championship.

So in terms of NBA news and milestones, the Thunder earning the best record in the NBA may seem like a footnote in the broader league landscape, but for Oklahoma City’s outlook, and for the teams this milestone affects downstream, it is a much bigger deal than it might seem at first glance.