The Phoenix Suns and Dallas Mavericks both won tonight, beating the Brooklyn Nets and Milwaukee Bucks, respectively. Anthony Davis returned for the Mavs in a blowout, and the Suns caught a break, with Damian Lillard out for the Bucks, leading to a victory in the final seconds.
With these results, the 10th place Suns and 11th place Mavs are both now 35-37 overall, three full games ahead of the 12th place 32-40 Portland Trail Blazers. The Mavs hold the playoff tiebreaker on the Blazers (head to head record), so Portland technically needs to outplay them by four games. The Suns technically do not yet have the conference-record tiebreaker with Portland (due to a head-to-head tie), they are currently ahead in conference by 4 wins. All three teams have 10 games left.
The Blazers did get some good news: A few days after upsetting the Nuggets, Denver fell again, this time to the Chicago Bulls. In the process, Portland and Chicago are now tied for tenth in the NBA Draft.
Portland is back in action tomorrow night, against a road-tired Cleveland Cavaliers, who will rest star Donovan Mitchell. For the playoff race, every game is vital: If Portland goes 6-4 in their relatively easy stretch run, they’d still need the Mavs (and probably the Suns) to finish the season 2-8.