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Playoff Probabilities

FiveThirtyEight: 93.0 percent

Basketball-Reference: 89.5 percent

PlayoffStatus.com: 91.0 percent

What if someone told you before the season that fewer than five wins would separate the West's No. 3 seed from the No. 10 seed entering the final 20ish games? Would you have believed it? Perhaps. The West is wonderfully wild and wacky.

What if you were then told that, among those eight teams, the Blazers would have the highest probability of snagging a postseason appearance? Would you have believed that? Definitely, positively, unquestionably not.

Statistical projections technically lean toward the Timberwolves, but they aren't accounting for Butler's sabbatical. The Spurs don't have Leonard. The Thunder don't have Roberson. The Pelicans don't have Cousins. The Nuggets are trying to work in Millsap. The Jazz still have too much ground to make up. The Clippers, too.

Portland, meanwhile, is playing its best basketball of the season—and, perhaps, of the post-LaMarcus Aldridge era, as Blazers Edge's Peter Sampson wrote:

"The Blazers are 15-5 in their last 20 games. After flipping back and forth for much of the season, the offense and defense are clicking at the same time. The Blazers have maintained a 107.2 offensive rating while having a 6th rated 103.4 defensive rating over their last 15 games.

"The defense has ramped up even more of late. Since the All-Star break, the team has an NBA-best 98.1 defensive rating and a net rating of 9.9 during that span—behind only the Warriors, Raptors, and Rockets. Portland has beaten quality opponents and, just as crucially, found a way to win games when things weren’t clicking from the get-go. That’s the hallmark of a good team."

Recapturing their Moda Center mojo is a huge part of the Blazers' upswing; they're 13-1 over their past 14 home games. This most recent stretch has reinforced their capacity to close games. They're 7-2 through their last nine crunch-time performances, with a handful of fourth-quarter comebacks under their belt.

Damian Lillard has been sensational. CJ McCollum is doing his thing. Shabazz Napier is playing his way into closing lineups. Jusuf Nurkic isn't hijacking too many offensive possessions. Evan Turner is shooting 37.5 percent (9-of-24) from downtown over his last 20 games. Zach Collins is flashing nice help defense around the rim and reaffirming himself as a lethal pick-and-pop option. His frontcourt partnership with Ed Davis has been straight fire.

Indeed, the Blazers are good—much better, it seems, than the first half of the season portended. As far as playoffs locks go in an ever-shifting Western Conference, they're as certain as it gets.

Unless otherwise cited, stats courtesy of NBA.com, ESPN or Basketball Reference and accurate leading into games on March 6.

Dan Favale covers the NBA for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter (@danfavale) and listen to his Hardwood Knocks podcast, co-hosted by B/R's Andrew Bailey.