/turns off exaggeration machine

Although this has been brought up a good deal of times, the Nuggets and the Mavericks are tied in the race for the second seed. It is worth noticing, however, that the Mavericks have an easier end-of-season schedule than the Nuggets. According to Hollinger's Power Rankings over on ESPN, the Nuggets and the Mavericks have had similarly dificult schedules so far, but the Mavericks have the easier finishing stretch. They only have two back-to-backs, while we have four. Both teams have 7 home games and 7 road games remaining, but the Mavericks' don't really have any roadtrips left, while we have a five-game road trip coming up that includes 4 playoff teams: Boston, Orlando, Dallas, and the Craptors Raptors. Here are the Mavericks' schedule and the Nuggets' schedule, with the
Mavericks' one being first.

To the jump!

Upcoming Games
March	Opponent	Time	Local TV	Nat TV	Radio
Sat 20	vs Boston	8:00pm	KTXA		KESN / KFLC
Mon 22	@ New Orleans	7:00pm	KTXA		KESN / KFLC
Tue 23	vs LA Clippers	7:30pm	FSNSW		KESN / KFLC
Thu 25	@ Portland	9:30pm			KESN / KFLC
Sat 27	@ Golden State	9:30pm	KTXA		KESN / KFLC
Mon 29	vs Denver	7:30pm	KTXA		KESN / KFLC
Wed 31	@ Memphis	7:00pm	FSNSW		KESN / KFLC
April	Opponent	Time	Local TV	Nat TV	Radio
Thu 01	vs Orlando	7:00pm			KESN / KFLC
Sat 03	vs Oklahoma City	7:30pm	FSNSW		KESN / KFLC
Wed 07	vs Memphis	7:30pm	KTXA		KESN / KFLC
Fri 09	@ Portland	9:00pm	FSNSW		KESN / KFLC
Sat 10	@ Sacramento	9:00pm	FSNSW		KESN / KFLC
Mon 12	@ LA Clippers	9:30pm	KTXA		KESN / KFLC
Wed 14	vs San Antonio	7:00pm	FSNSW		KESN / KFLC

That was the Mavs' schedule. Easy as cheese, right? (Don't open the link, Thursty)

Here's the Nuggets' schedule. What a bummer...

March	Opponent	Time	Local TV	Nat TV	Radio
Thu 18	vs New Orleans	7:30pm	Altitude		KCKK AM 1510
Sat 20	vs Milwaukee	7:00pm	Altitude		KCKK AM 1510
Tue 23	@ New York	5:30pm	Altitude		KCKK AM 1510
Wed 24	@ Boston	5:00pm	Altitude2		KCKK AM 1510
Fri 26	@ Toronto	5:00pm	Altitude		KCKK AM 1510
Sun 28	@ Orlando	4:00pm	Altitude		KKHI 101.9 FM
Mon 29	@ Dallas	6:30pm	Altitude		KCKK AM 1510
April	Opponent	Time	Local TV	Nat TV	Radio
Thu 01	vs Portland	8:30pm			KCKK AM 1510
Sat 03	vs LA Clippers	7:00pm	Altitude		KCKK AM 1510
Wed 07	@ Oklahoma City	6:00pm	Altitude2		KKHI 101.9 FM
Thu 08	vs LA Lakers	8:30pm			KCKK AM 1510
Sat 10	vs San Antonio	7:00pm	Altitude		KCKK AM 1510
Mon 12	vs Memphis	7:00pm	Altitude		KCKK AM 1510
Tue 13	@ Phoenix	8:30pm	Altitude		KCKK AM 1510

By my count, that's 10 games against playoff teams, The Mavs only have 7, and 5 of them are at home.

I'm going to predict the result of each of the games for both teams while being as impartial as possible. I know that I haven't added enough pictures yet, but I'll do that later on when I have more time.

Let's start with the Mavs!

Saturday, March 20 vs. Boston: Win

Monday, March 22 at New Orleans: Win

Tuesday, March 23 vs. The Crappy LA Team: Win

Thursday, March 25 at Portland: Loss, because the Rose Garden is a hard place to play

Saturday, March 27 at Golden State: Blowout win

Monday, March 29 vs. Denver: Overtime loss

Wednesday, March 31 at Memphis: Win

Thursday, April 1 vs. Orlando: Loss

Saturday, April 3 vs. OKC: Loss

Tuesday, April 7 vs. Memphis: Win

Friday, April 9 at Portland: Win

Last three games of the season against SacTown, The Crappy LA Team, and the Spurs: Win, Win, Win.

That adds up to a 10-4 closing stretch for the Mavericks, which puts them at 56-26

Let's go on to the Nuggets!

Thursday, March 18 vs. NOLA: Win

Saturday March 20 vs. Milwaukee: Very close win

Tuesday March 23 at New York: Win

Wednesday, March 24 at Boston: Loss

Friday March 26 at Toronto: Win

Sunday, March 28 at Orlando: Loss

Monday, March 29 at Dallas: OT Win (wishful thinking)

Thursday April 1 vs. Portland: Win

Saturday April 3 vs. The Crappy LA Team: Win

Wednesday April 7 at OKC: Loss, because they want to save energy for the next game...

Thursday April 8 vs. LA: Win. That's right.

Saturday, April 10 vs. SAntonio: Win

Monday, April 12 vs. Memphis: Win

Tuesday, April 13 at Phoenix: Definite loss.

Which leads in to my next point: The game against the Mavericks will probably decide the second seed. The Mavs definitely have the advantage, as it is at Dallas and on the second night of a back-to-back for the Nuggets but not for the Mavs. Also, we won't have Kenyon Martin on Nowitzki, and George Karl will definitely not be there. Hopefully, the Nuggets fight through adversity to post a win and thus win the tiebreaker for the second seed (here's also hoping that OKC falls to the seventh seed).

Again, I'm sorry for not including more pictures. I will when I have more time.

I have tried to add some of pictures, but they always shift to the very top of the post even when I use that small image button on the Inserts section of the FanPost-making page. Also, about a third of my post was deleted when I tried to add a picture to the end of the line, as somehow the HTML tags didn't automatically close. It also deleted all the rest of my pictures.