A little Playoffs chaos can be a nice change of pace

I welcome chaos. When you've been married for almost 10 years, have a complete set of two small kids (a girl and a boy) and drive an SUV, a little craziness invading the suburban splendor ain't so bad.

I'm talking the NBA Playoffs of course and more specifically the Western Conference. And I'm praying these last couple of regular-season days lead to a bracket-busting seven-car pileup.

If I'm reading the schedule correctly -- and this Texas A&M grad thinks he is -- four teams could very easily end up tied at 54-28, with another three checking in at 49-33. It's not that hard to imagine. It's actually easy if you try.

What we need is for Houston, San Antonio, Portland and Utah to win their last two games. Denver and Dallas beat the one lottery team each has left on its plate. New Orleans would lose its final two at Houston and San Antonio.

That leaves the Rockets, Spurs, Blazers and Nuggets with 54 wins each. The Hornets, Mavericks and Jazz finish with 49. Only the Lakers, who have long since clinched the West's top seed, are excused from this collision.

(Quick aside: Do you think those guys that come up with tiebreaker rules are as giddy as I am? I imagine a room full of basketball scientists in white lab coats watching scores come across the NBA TV ticker.)

My swing teams in this perfect storm of tiebreaker madness are Utah, Houston and Portland. Other than the Jazz outscoring the nothing-to-play-for Lakers in their regular-season finale Tuesday, the spoilers to this mess involve a pair of Wednesday affairs. The Rockets close at Dallas, and seedings will be on the line for both. Same goes for the Blazers protecting their rocking home court against Denver.

Should all this go down, we head over to the NBA's tiebreaking procedures to resolve those pesky No. 2-8 seeds. The first official tiebreaker when more than two teams are tied reads: "Better winning percentage in all games among the tied teams."

Here's where it gets tricky. Since division titles are also are stake -- Southwest (Houston and San Antonio) and Northwest (Portland and Denver) -- those need to be sorted out first. Remember, division winners are guaranteed top four seeds.

The Spurs and Rockets would have to go to the fifth tiebreaker (better winning percentage against conference playoff teams) to decide the Southwest. Houston gets the nod there. The Northwest isn't as complicated, going only three down the list (division record) to award the division to Denver.

These two division winners are then seeded second and third. Since the Rockets won the season series over Denver 3-1, Houston is second and the Nuggets third. Division champs can't fall below non-division winners, even if the teams in question are tied.

San Antonio and Portland then need to decide which gets the homecourt edge in their 4 vs. 5 first-round showdown. It's the Blazers due to a 3-1 series victory. Easy enough.

When it comes to the bottom three, the tiebreaker is also straightforward. Based on the round-robin records between the teams, Utah snags the sixth seed and faces Denver in the first round. Seventh-place New Orleans gets Houston and No. 8 Dallas falls to the dreaded Lakers.

The Mavericks, Rockets, Hornets, Jazz, Nuggets, Blazers and Spurs all are in action Tuesday night.

Let the chaos unfurl.