NBA Storylines: Analyzing the Strength of Schedule Rankings for the Rest of the Season

As February comes to a close on a Friday night, the season will be 72% complete. The top seeds in each conference are holding strong, but the next 44 days will still bring plenty of excitement and uncertainty as teams jockey for position in the standings.

There will also be some necessary preparation for the postseason. Through Thursday, Luka Dončić has played just six games for the Los Angeles Lakers, De’Andre Hunter has played just seven with the Cleveland Cavaliers and Jimmy Butler has played just eight for the Golden State Warriors. When Anthony Davis returns from injury, he’ll have played just one game for the Dallas Mavericks.

That means that the final 28% of the season is important beyond playoff and Play-In Tournament positioning.

Here’s a schedule breakdown for March and April.

Note: A rest-advantage game (or rest-disadvantage game) is one where one team played the day/night before, but the other (the team with the advantage) did not. Through Thursday, teams are 124-88 (.585) in rest-advantage games, 69-44 (.611) at home and 55-44 (.556) on the road.

All stats are through Thursday, Feb. 27, but “remaining” games are those starting March 1.

Remaining strength of schedule – March and April

Here’s a look at the remaining schedule for every team, sorted from the toughest (regarding cumulative opponent winning percentage) to the easiest:

Team

OppPCT

B2B

H | R

1.

Phoenix

.585

3

12 | 10

2.

Sacramento

.556

5

12 | 12

3.

Denver

.544

4

12 | 10

4.

Portland

.542

4

11 | 11

5.

L.A. Lakers

.542

6

12 | 12

6.

LA Clippers

.535

5

12 | 11

7.

Milwaukee

.533

5

12 | 12

8.

San Antonio

.531

6

13 | 12

9.

New Orleans

.523

3

11 | 11

10.

Oklahoma City

.521

4

12 | 11

11.

Memphis

.519

5

12 | 11

12.

Chicago

.509

3

9 | 13

13.

New York

.507

6

10 | 13

14.

Dallas

.505

3

10 | 12

15.

Utah

.503

4

11 | 12

16.

Brooklyn

.500

5

12 | 11

17.

Houston

.497

3

12 | 11

18.

Charlotte

.496

4

12 | 12

19.

Golden State

.493

4

11 | 12

20.

Indiana

.487

5

14 | 10

21.

Detroit

.486

4

11 | 11

22.

Cleveland

.484

4

10 | 13

23.

Miami

.478

4

16 | 8

24.

Orlando

.471

4

10 | 11

25.

Atlanta

.464

5

12 | 10

26.

Philadelphia

.464

5

11 | 13

27.

Washington

.446

5

9 | 15

28.

Boston

.444

4

12 | 10

29.

Minnesota

.438

3

11 | 10

30.

Toronto

.367

4

9 | 13

OppPCT = Cumulative opponent winning percentage (as of Feb. 27)
B2B = Back-to-backs (includes three Feb. 28-March 1 back-to-backs)
H | R = Home games | Road games

Eastern Conference notes

The Hawks‘ longest homestand of the season (six games over 11 days) is March 4-14, with two games against the Pacers. It begins with one of their five remaining rest-disadvantage games.The Celtics have the league’s third-easiest schedule regarding cumulative opponent winning percentage. Their game against the Cavs on Friday is the start of a seven-game homestand that includes other marquee games against the Nuggets, Lakers and Thunder. After that, only three of their final 16 games are against teams currently with winning records.The 11th-place Nets have one game remaining against the 10th-place Bulls, and the head-to-head tie-breaker will be on the line in Chicago on March 13.The Hornets‘ first game of March (Saturday in Charlotte) is their last chance to beat the Wizards, having lost the first three meetings by a total of 22 points.The Bulls are tied for the fewest home games remaining (nine), but also for the fewest back-to-backs (three) and most rest-advantage games (six).The Cavs, entering their game against the Celtics on Friday, have the best record (22-6) in games played between the 16 teams currently over .500. Only four of their first 14 March games are against that group, but they’ll close the season with a tougher stretch that includes two games each against the Knicks and Pacers.The Pistons are tied with the Blazers for the most interconference games remaining. They’ll play 13 of their final 22 games against the West. They’re also one of three teams — the Bulls and Wizards are the others — with a league-high six rest-advantage games remaining.The Pacers will play 11 of their last 15 games of the season at home, though the first two games of that stretch are the end of their only stretch of five games in seven days. They will be at a rest disadvantage in both of their remaining games against Milwaukee, currently ahead of the fifth-place Bucks by a half game.The Heat have the most home-heavy remaining schedule, with 16 of their 24 March and April games at the Kaseya Center. They’ll enter March already two games into a stretch where they’re playing nine of 10 at home, but their first five games of March are their third (and final) stretch of five games in seven days. Their last four games of the season are one of the easiest stretches for any team: vs. Philadelphia, @ Chicago, @ New Orleans, vs. Washington.The Bucks have the East’s toughest remaining schedule regarding cumulative opponent winning percentage. They’re one of two teams — the Suns are the other — with only three games remaining against the bottom 10 teams in the league. All three (one vs. the Sixers, two vs. the Pelicans) are in April.The Knicks‘ six remaining back-to-backs are the most in the East. The second games of four of those back-to-backs (three of them rest-disadvantage games) are against the Clippers (x 2) and Cavs (x 2).The Magic are one of two teams — Minnesota is the other — with a league-low 21 games in March and April. They enter March in the middle of one of their four remaining two-day breaks, and they’ll have a four-day break from April 4-7. What could be their two most important games of the season (both against the Hawks) will come in the final six days.The Sixers are one of five teams with a better record on the road (10-18) than at home (10-20). After hosting the Warriors and Blazers in the first three days of March, they’ll play 10 of their next 12 games on the road.The Raptors have the league’s easiest remaining schedule regarding cumulative opponent winning percentage by a huge margin. Only three of their 22 games are against teams currently with winning records, and they have five more games against the bottom 10 teams in the league (16) than any other team (even though they’re in the bottom 10 themselves).The Wizards have the league’s most road-heavy remaining schedule, but also its most East-heavy remaining schedule, with 19 of their 24 March and April games within the Eastern Conference. That includes three games each against the Heat and Raptors.

Western Conference notes

The Mavs are one of four Western Conference teams with more March and April games against the Eastern Conference (12) than they have against the West (10). They’ll play the Bucks twice in the next six days and will have a stretch of nine straight games against the East (including two against Brooklyn) from March 16-April 2.The Nuggets will have the most West-heavy remaining schedule, with 17 of their 22 games within the conference. Their first five games of March, which include three games in Boston and Oklahoma City (x 2), is the toughest five-game stretch remaining for any team.The Warriors‘ longest homestand of the season (seven games over 13 days) is March 8-20. It’s preceded by a five-game trip (that began with a win in Orlando on Thursday) and followed by a six-game tripThe Rockets have four games remaining (two each against the Nuggets and Lakers) in the 2-5 tier in the West, and two of them — at L.A., vs. Denver — are their final two games of the season.The Clippers have the most games remaining (five) within the No. 6-10 tier in the Western Conference. They host the Kings on March 9 and will play four of their final six games against the Mavs (x 2), Kings and Warriors.The Lakers, because of postponements, have a stretch (March 13-22) where they’re playing seven games in 10 days. It includes three back-to-backs, two huge games against the Nuggets, and three of their league-high six rest-disadvantage games remaining on the schedule. They also have another stretch of five games in seven days (April 3-9) that includes two games in Oklahoma City.The Grizzlies have just two games remaining within the 2-5 tier in the West: March 29 vs. the Lakers and April 11 (a rest-disadvantage game) at Denver.The Wolves have both the fewest remaining games (21) in the West and the West’s easiest remaining schedule regarding cumulative opponent winning percentage. Only seven of those 21 games against teams that currently have winning records. They don’t have any games left against the other four teams — the Clippers, Warriors, Mavs and Kings — in the No. 6-10 tier in the West.The Pelicans have the league’s toughest remaining schedule regarding opposing defenses, with 12 of their final 22 games against teams that currently rank in the top 10 defensively and only three against teams that rank in the bottom 10.The Thunder have just one rest-disadvantage game, and it’s Monday against Houston. That’s the start of a stretch where they’re playing 15 of 19 against teams currently with winning records, with two games each against the Rockets, Grizzlies, Nuggets, Pistons and Lakers. There’s also a potential NBA Finals preview (March 12 in Boston) in there, too.The Suns have the league’s toughest remaining schedule regarding cumulative opponent winning percentage, with 19 of their 22 March and April games against the 16 teams currently over .500. No other team has more than 16 games against the top 16, against which the Suns are currently 11-20. The good news is that they’re the only team without any rest-disadvantage games remaining on their schedule.The Blazers are tied with the Pistons for the most interconference games remaining. They’ll play 13 of their final 22 games against the East. They’re 11-5 against the opposite conference entering their game in Brooklyn on Friday.The Kings have the league’s second-toughest remaining schedule regarding cumulative opponent winning percentage, with 16 of their 24 games against teams currently boasting winning records. That includes two games each against the Nuggets, Clippers and Cavs. Three of their first seven March games are big road games — at Dallas, at the Clippers, at Golden State — within the No. 6-10 tier in the West.The Spurs have a league-high 25 games remaining in March and April. A rescheduled game has them playing six games in nine days (March 27-April 4), a stretch that begins and ends with games against the Cavs.The Jazz are 6-35 within the Western Conference, but are 8-9 against the East. After they host the Pelicans on Sunday, they’ll play 10 of their next 12 games against the opposite conference, a stretch that includes two games each against the Wizards, Raptors and Celtics.

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John Schuhmann is a senior stats analyst for NBA.com. You can e-mail him here, find his archive here and follow him on X.

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