With just over one week remaining in the 2023/24 National Basketball Association (NBA) regular season and only four or five games left to be played per team, the race to 50 wins is going down to the wire, particularly in the Western Conference.

In the Eastern Conference, the Boston Celtics broke the 50-win ceiling a few weeks ago and remain the only team in the conference to establish that mark, while in the Western Conference, the Oklahoma City Thunder, Denver Nuggets, and Minnesota Timberwolves registered their 50th win in the last couple of weeks. Nothing new here as the Western Conference normally has more 50-game winners than their Eastern Conference counterparts.

Of the 112 teams that have been to the NBA Finals since the 1967/68 season when the NBA moved to 82 games per team, only 19 have won less than 50 games and only eight of those have won the title. Considering the fact that six of those sub-50 finals appearances occurred during the shortened seasons in two lockout years, and more recently, the two seasons affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, 50 wins is a critical juncture for any team with ambitions to hold the Larry O’Brien Championship Trophy aloft.

Historically, the most regular season wins never guarantees a championship (only 37.5 per cent of the top-seeded teams have won the finals), and the record-setting 2015/16 Golden State Warriors, with the most-ever NBA regular season wins (73–9), infamously lost the finals to the Cleveland Cavaliers and became the first — and only — team to lose a finals series after leading 3-1.

A classic example of the reverse is the achievement of the Miami Heat (44-38) last season, when they emerged from the Play-In Tournament as the seventh seed in the Eastern Conference and lost 1-4 to the Nuggets in the finals. Notwithstanding, the odds of getting to the final series increases significantly with 50 wins in the pocket.

Incidentally, the only other team to achieve a 70-win season were the 1995/96 Chicago Bulls (72-10), who went on to raise the trophy in the first season of their second three-peat.

This year, the league-leading Celtics, though miles ahead of all others in the east, will certainly not get to 70 wins, but they have already clinched the conference, and the seven teams behind them have already clinched postseason spots, with the Milwaukee Bucks and Cleveland Cavaliers expected to have 50 wins by next weekend.

In the Western Conference, a dogfight is expected up to the last day of the regular season on April 14, as only three teams have secured play-off spots to date, and there is a strong possibility that up to seven teams will end the season with 50 wins. That would be a repeat of the 2000/01 season when the top seven teams in the west had at least 50 wins compared to only three teams in the east, and that came right after the 1999/00 season when the top six teams in the west all had at least 50 wins, and the east could only muster three.

This weekend, most teams will be battling for their play-off lives in the 29 slated games, and the race to 50 in the west should be full of highlight reels.

The 10th-seeded Warriors visit American Airlines Center this evening to take on the fifth-seeded Dallas Mavericks for a quick rematch of Tuesday night’s 104-100 Golden State win. The win was their fifth-straight and it broke Dallas’s seven-game win streak, plus the Mavericks’ streak of 11 straight wins in games that the NBA’s leading scorer, Luka Doncic, played.

There is no love lost between these two teams and the freshness of the Tuesday night result will fuel the adrenaline required to make this evening’s encounter memorable.

Tomorrow afternoon, the Los Angeles Lakers, who are in a ding-dong battle with the Warriors for the last Play-In spot in the west, welcome the Cavaliers into Crypto.com Arena for the first of both their back-to-back games. The Cavaliers are in their own 50-win chase in the east and will be going full-press against a dangerous Lakers team that has ambitions of a playoff run similar to their journey to the Western Conference Finals last year. This promises to be a good watch and should deliver on every expectation.

The Cavaliers remain in California to face the Los Angeles Clippers on Sunday afternoon, with both teams having top-four ambitions in their respective conferences. The Clippers have lost a bit of the sting that came with the initial signing of James Harden, but in any given game, Paul George and Kawhi Leonard can provide enough highlights to fuel the hopes of the Clippers’ fans.

Cleveland are one of the best away teams in the east and should make this a contest but may not have enough firepower on the court to get past these Clippers.

The second-seeded Milwaukee Bucks welcome the fifth-seeded New York Knicks into Fiserv Forum on Sunday evening for a crucial clash. Both teams have 50-win ambitions, more so the Bucks, but both have suffered unforgivable losses in recent games that have diminished the expectations of their play-off runs.

However, those losses should result in more desperation, and full effort is expected in the contest on Sunday to help generate some momentum entering the final week of the regular season. This is expected to be a good watch if both teams show up with the anticipated desire to get to the 50-win mark.

The Lakers host the Minnesota Timberwolves in the weekend’s closer, and while the visitors already have 50-plus wins on their record, both have reasons to shoot for the stars on Sunday night — Minnesota is in a battle with the Oklahoma City Thunder for the second seed in the west, while the Lakers are trying to stay ahead of the Warriors in the last two Play-In slots.

Both teams are finishing the regular season strong, even with the Timberwolves eagerly awaiting the return of Karl-Anthony Towns to boost their postseason aspirations. These teams are at opposite ends of the play-off spectrum, but expectations are high for this encounter, and it shouldn’t disappoint.

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NBA 2023/24 Champion

Team Odds

Boston Celtics 3.10

Denver Nuggets 4.30

Los Angeles Clippers 7.80

Milwaukee Bucks 8.60

Oklahoma City Thunder 20.00

Phoenix Suns 24.00

Dallas Mavericks 26.00

Minnesota Timberwolves 30.00

Philadelphia 76ers 30.00

Los Angeles Lakers 40.00

*Only Top 10 odds shown (see website for full list)

Note: Odds are subject to change