The Memphis Grizzlies have been the biggest surprise of the season. With a rotation that includes five guys in their first, second or third seasons, the Grizz were not supposed to compete for a playoff spot. And through the first seven weeks of the season, the Grizzlies were 6-16 and in 13th place in the West.

But they've seen marked improvement since then. And as we come out of the All-Star break, the Grizzlies are in eighth place in the West at 28-26, five games in the loss column ahead of the ninth-place Portland Trail Blazers and 10th-place San Antonio Spurs, veteran teams with active playoff streaks of six and 22 seasons, respectively.

Some early playoff experience for Ja Morant and Jaren Jackson would be huge. But the Grizzlies aren't in the postseason yet. And though they have a big cushion for that final playoff spot in the West, they have the league's toughest schedule going forward, both in regard to opponent strength (cumulative opponent winning percentage of .554) and amount of road games (16 of their final 28 games are on the road).

The Grizzlies will have 16 games against the other 13 teams that have winning records. That includes two games each against the Lakers, Raptors, Rockets, Mavs and Thunder. Of the Grizzlies' 12 games that aren't against teams with winning records, five are against the three teams - Portland (2), San Antonio (1) and New Orleans (2) - chasing them for that final Western Conference playoff spot.

To make things more interesting, the Pelicans have the easiest remaining schedule in the league, with only nine of their final 27 games against teams currently over .500. The Blazers, meanwhile, have the second easiest and the most home-heavy remaining schedule in the West.

Both ESPN and FiveThirtyEight show the Grizzlies as having a less-than-25% chance of making the playoffs, which is pretty wild for a team that has a five-game lead in the loss column with less than 30 games to go. But it speaks to both the Grizzlies' relatively weak point differential (-1.4 per game) and how difficult their remaining schedule is. If they keep that playoff spot, they certainly will have earned it.

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Important note: The following schedule analysis is done with the league having yet to reschedule the Clippers-Lakers game that was postponed after the death of Kobe Bryant. We assume the game will be rescheduled for Friday, April 10, an available date for both teams that wouldn't create a back-to-back-to-back situation for either. But that's just an assumption, with the league likely to announce the make-up date soon.

With that assumption, here's a breakdown of every Western Conference team's remaining schedule ...

Western Conference

Western Conference, strength of remaining schedule Team G H/R RA/RDA OppO OppD OppPCT Memphis 28 12/16 4/4 12/7 12/8 0.554 Golden State 27 15/12 5/5 11/6 11/9 0.538 Minnesota 29 14/15 1/5 14/6 10/9 0.524 Phoenix 27 12/15 4/4 10/7 9/8 0.522 Denver 27 13/14 3/2 11/8 8/8 0.517 Oklahoma City 27 12/15 1/4 13/9 11/8 0.512 Utah 28 16/12 3/4 12/6 8/11 0.502 Dallas 27 12/15 3/4 10/8 7/6 0.495 L.A. Lakers 29 16/13 5/5 8/10 10/8 0.493 San Antonio 28 15/13 4/3 9/11 8/7 0.488 LA Clippers 27 14/13 4/2 7/10 8/7 0.488 Sacramento 28 15/13 3/4 9/8 9/12 0.487 Houston 28 14/14 2/2 9/10 8/11 0.477 Portland 26 15/11 3/3 7/9 8/8 0.467 New Orleans 27 13/14 2/2 9/11 6/12 0.449 G = Total games H/R = Home & road games

RA/RDA = Rest-advantage & rest-disadvantage games

OppO = Games vs. top-10 & bottom-10 offenses (as of All-Star break)

OppD = Games vs. top-10 & bottom-10 defenses (as of All-Star break)

OppPCT = Cumulative opponent winning percentage (as of All-Star break)

Rest advantage / Rest disadvantage: Games in which one team (at a disadvantage) played the day before and the other (at an advantage) did not. This season, teams are 103-89 (.536) with a rest advantage, 70-55 (.560) at home and 33-34 (.493) on the road.

More Western Conference notes:

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NBA-Best Bucks Have Tests On The Horizon



If there's an Eastern Conference team that can keep the 46-8 Milwaukee Bucks from reaching The Finals, we'll get some clues in the final eight weeks of the season, because the Bucks have more games against teams 2-6 in the East after the break (10) than they had before it (nine).

That includes three more games against the second-place Toronto Raptors, two more against the third-place Boston Celtics, two more against the fourth-place Miami Heat, and two more against the fifth-place Philadelphia 76ers. The Bucks are currently 3-3 against that group, having lost to Boston (1-1), Miami (0-1) and Philly (1-1).

The Bucks will be at a rest disadvantage for two of those 10 remaining games against the group: Feb. 25 in Toronto and March 2 in Miami, with games in Washington and Charlotte the nights before those marquee matchups. They won't have a rest advantage for any of the 10.

The most fun stretch of Milwaukee's remaining schedule should be the first seven days of April. They'll host the champs on April 1, and then head out on a three-game trip through Toronto, Boston and Philadelphia.

In total, the Bucks are tied with the Grizzlies for the most games remaining (16) vs. teams with winning records. That includes road games against the Lakers (March 6) and the two Western Conference teams with wins in Milwaukee: Denver (March 9) and Dallas (March 29).

Most of the games noted above will be against good offenses. The Bucks rank No. 1 defensively overall, having allowed 3.4 fewer points per 100 possessions than any other team (a remarkable differential) and 8.0 fewer than the league average, the third best differential in the 24 seasons for which we have play-by-play data. But they rank just eighth defensively (109.9 points allowed per 100 possessions) in games against the top 13* offenses, and have played the fewest games (17) against that group.

* Typically, we'll measure defenses vs. the top 10 offenses, but going into the break, there wasn't much of a gap between the Heat's ninth-ranked offense (111.7 points scored per 100 possessions) and the Wizards at 13 (111.3).

Over the last eight weeks, the Bucks will play 14 of their 28 games against offenses that currently rank 13th or better. When they lose, they usually give up a lot of 3-pointers, so games against the Mavs (first in 3-pointers per game), Rockets (second) and Raptors (fifth) will be particularly interesting in that regard.

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Eastern Conference

Eastern Conference, strength of remaining schedule Team G H/R RA/RDA OppO OppD OppPCT Detroit 25 11/14 4/3 11/8 11/6 0.546 Washington 29 15/14 4/6 9/10 12/9 0.531 Milwaukee 28 13/15 4/4 8/6 11/9 0.526 Chicago 27 14/13 6/3 12/9 12/6 0.525 Charlotte 28 16/12 4/1 9/10 11/10 0.516 Toronto 27 13/14 3/3 10/9 10/9 0.514 Boston 28 13/15 4/5 8/10 10/7 0.514 Cleveland 28 12/16 4/5 10/10 10/8 0.503 Indiana 27 12/15 3/3 11/10 10/10 0.499 Brooklyn 29 13/16 2/3 10/11 11/10 0.499 New York 27 14/13 5/4 7/9 7/8 0.493 Miami 28 16/12 4/2 6/13 8/12 0.466 Atlanta 26 15/11 5/3 4/10 7/13 0.465 Orlando 27 13/14 2/2 6/13 7/9 0.464 Philadelphia 27 14/13 2/3 6/12 7/13 0.455 G = Total games H/R = Home & road games

RA/RDA = Rest-advantage & rest-disadvantage games

OppO = Games vs. top-10 & bottom-10 offenses (as of All-Star break)

OppD = Games vs. top-10 & bottom-10 defenses (as of All-Star break)

OppPCT = Cumulative opponent winning percentage (as of All-Star break)

More Eastern Conference notes: