Sam Smith

You can understand what this week is about in the NBA.

You want to avoid Detroit, and not only because it may still snow there. And you want to avoid Phoenix, and not just because summer has come a bit early with temperatures slated to be in the 90's this week.

So, if you are in the East, get out of the seventh spot in the playoffs. It's too late for the Atlanta Hawks. They'll make the playoffs, and then have as many playoff wins this season as the Miami Heat. That's because the Hawks will play the top seeded Boston Celtics, and with the games finally meaning something to them again, I wouldn't be surprised to see the effort we saw when the Celtics opened the season 29-3.

In the Western Conference, it's avoiding No. 3 because the Suns are just about locked into the sixth spot.

Unless, of course, they're not.

Usually in the NBA, by All-Star break the eight playoff teams in each conference are pretty much decided. Then it's playing for positioning the rest of the way. Golden State and Denver still are fighting it out for the right to go out in the first round — Dallas won't be the No. 1 seed this time — and the top six still don't quite know where they'll be or even if they'll have home court advantage.

With the Spurs' loss to the Lakers Sunday and a question if Manu Ginobili will play in the last two regular season games, the Suns could move up. The Suns could be the wild card in all of this.

There's a potentially eerie parallel here: The last team to come out of the sixth spot and win the NBA championship was the 1995 Houston Rockets, who with an MVP on the team made a major midseason trade for a future Hall of Famer at the end of his career and initially stumbled.

Sound familiar?

The Rockets got it together with one of the best playoff runs ever through heavily favored teams in the West, all having won at least 50 games, and then swept through the Finals with Hakeem Olajuwon and Clyde Drexler.

A similar result for Steve Nash and Shaquille O'Neal? They'll also have to beat all 50-win teams, though everyone will have to in the Western Conference this spring.

This is all too confusing, so let's start with the East.

Despite Toronto's loss in Detroit Sunday, it appears the Raptors still should be able to hold onto the sixth spot, which is huge in the East. The playoff positions to avoid are Nos. 7 and 8, which match a team with the Pistons or Celtics. It will be a major upset if anyone keeps those two powers from meeting in the conference finals.

With now 10 straight losses in Detroit, the Raptors seem to have little chance against the Pistons. Toronto has the Heat and Bulls left and two wins will clinch sixth. They can't pass Washington, which is locked in against Cleveland in what should be the best first round matchup in the East. With Gilbert Arenas back and taking a nice finisher role off the bench, the Cavs' reign as Eastern Conference champions should be over in about two weeks.

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The Raptors have a shot at upsetting the Magic because of Toronto's advantage in the backcourt. The Magic's backcourt has been its Achilles' heel all season, covered up by coach Stan Van Gundy's open attack. If the Magic try to spread the court and shoot threes, it gives Toronto a chance to get it's bad defender-good shooter-types like Jason Kapono and Carlos Delfino in the game. T.J. Ford and especially Jose Calderon should give Orlando fits, and if Rasho Nesterovic can just occupy Dwight Howard with the occasional jumper, Chris Bosh will have a huge advantage over the Magic's two small forwards playing the front line.

The Lakers probably get the top seed in the West, though it still remains unclear. They should have little problem with whichever no-defense eighth seed gets in. And then perhaps they get a whiff of Andrew Bynum in the second round.

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