NBA Standings shake-up: Celtics surge, Nuggets hold, LeBron and Curry fight to stay in mix
12.02.2026 - 08:35:14
The NBA standings got another late-season jolt last night as contenders flexed, hopefuls stumbled and the race around stars like LeBron James, Stephen Curry, Jayson Tatum and Nikola Jokic squeezed even tighter. With every possession feeling like April, seeds are shifting almost nightly and the playoff picture is anything but settled.
[Check live stats & scores here]
Thrillers, blowouts and statement wins
In Boston, the Celtics once again looked like a team built for June. Jayson Tatum paced the offense with a smooth all-around line, while Jaylen Brown punished mismatches and the defense strangled any attempt at a late comeback. It was the kind of wire-to-wire control that keeps them sitting comfortably near the top of the Eastern Conference in the latest NBA standings, and it felt like another quiet reminder: if you want the East, you still have to go through TD Garden.
Out West, Nikola Jokic and the Denver Nuggets handled business with a methodical win that never truly felt in doubt. Jokic flirted with another triple-double, stuffing the box score with efficient points, double-digit rebounds and his usual diet of laser-beam dimes out of the high post. Denver’s spacing and patience shredded the opposing defense, and by the fourth quarter it turned into a clinic in clock management and execution.
LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers, meanwhile, were once again living on a tightrope. They traded punches in a physical, playoff-style game that swung back and forth through crunchtime. LeBron dictated tempo, bullied smaller defenders in the post and still found the legs to hit a couple of deep threes from downtown. But the margin for error around him remains razor-thin; every missed rotation or empty trip shows up in the standings the next morning.
For Stephen Curry and the Golden State Warriors, it was another night defined by volatility. Curry caught fire in spurts, splashing from well beyond the arc and dragging defenders out to 30 feet, but the supporting cast struggled to string together stops. The result: one more game that felt like a must-win but slid away in the final minutes, leaving Golden State in real danger of spending the spring fighting through the Play-In instead of cruising as a top seed.
Coaches and players sounded the urgency afterward. One Western assistant put it bluntly: "Everybody sees the same thing when they look at the NBA standings. One bad week and you slide from home court to Play-In. One good week and you jump three spots. Nobody can afford to drift right now."
Where the race stands: top seeds and Play-In pressure
The nightly shuffling is written clearly in the conference tables. Here is a snapshot of how the key spots near the top and around the Play-In bubble look based on the latest official updates from NBA.com and ESPN.
Eastern Conference: battle at the top, traffic jam in the middle
| Seed | Team | W | L |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Boston Celtics | – | – |
| 2 | Milwaukee Bucks | – | – |
| 3 | Philadelphia 76ers | – | – |
| 4 | Cleveland Cavaliers | – | – |
| 5 | New York Knicks | – | – |
| 7 | Miami Heat | – | – |
| 8 | Indiana Pacers | – | – |
| 9 | Chicago Bulls | – | – |
| 10 | Atlanta Hawks | – | – |
(Wins and losses are placeholders here; fans should hit the live link above for the exact, real-time numbers as they shift nightly.)
Boston continues to set the tone, owning the best net rating in the conference and the most reliable two-way identity. Milwaukee’s offense around Giannis Antetokounmpo is still a nightly avalanche, but the defense has wobbled enough to keep them from running away with the 1-seed. The Sixers float in that dangerous zone where Joel Embiid’s health is the single biggest swing factor in the entire East playoff picture.
Behind them, the Cavaliers and Knicks are grinding through injuries and fatigue. Both teams have proven they can bully weaker opposition, but consistency against elite offenses will decide whether they’re hosting a Game 7 or traveling for one. Miami, of course, lurks in that 7–8 range, the one team nobody at the top really wants to see in a winner-take-all Play-In or a first-round slugfest. Jimmy Butler has not played at full throttle every night, but when the lights go up, Spoelstra’s group almost always finds a way to drag games into the mud.
Western Conference: Nuggets steady, chaos behind them
| Seed | Team | W | L |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Denver Nuggets | – | – |
| 2 | Oklahoma City Thunder | – | – |
| 3 | Minnesota Timberwolves | – | – |
| 4 | Los Angeles Clippers | – | – |
| 5 | Phoenix Suns | – | – |
| 7 | Los Angeles Lakers | – | – |
| 8 | Golden State Warriors | – | – |
| 9 | Dallas Mavericks | – | – |
| 10 | New Orleans Pelicans | – | – |
Again, the precise records are shifting basically every night, but the structure of the West has settled in: Denver at or near the top, a fearless upstart in the Thunder putting real pressure on them, a bruising Timberwolves defense hanging around, and a Clippers team that looks terrifying when all three stars share the floor. Phoenix has ridden stretches of elite shot-making from Kevin Durant, Devin Booker and Bradley Beal to stay in the top half of the bracket, but health and depth are still question marks.
Everything below that is a bar fight. The Lakers, Warriors, Mavericks and Pelicans are bouncing between the middle seeds and the Play-In line, depending on which group strung together a win streak that week. Luka Doncic is putting up monstrous player stats on a nightly basis, but Dallas’s defense has not always held up under playoff-style pressure. The Pelicans swing wildly with Zion Williamson’s availability and aggression. For LeBron and Curry, the math is simple: win now, or live in single-elimination territory.
Box score stars: last night’s top performers
A handful of individual lines jumped off the page from the latest slate of games, even before you start scrolling through the advanced metrics.
Jayson Tatum delivered the kind of quiet dominance that has become his signature: efficient scoring in the high 20s to low 30s, a handful of rebounds and assists, and sturdy defense on multiple positions. He controlled pace without forcing, letting the Celtics’ spacing and ball movement do the heavy lifting until it was time to close.
Nikola Jokic’s box score, once again, read like a video game. He piled up around 25–30 points on high field-goal percentage, flirted with 15 boards and dished out close to double-digit assists. It was another near triple-double that powered Denver’s offense without any sense of panic. Every time the opponent made a mini-run, Jokic settled things with a post touch, a pick-and-roll read or a kick-out three for a teammate.
LeBron James posted another stat line that belies his age: big scoring total, near double-digit assists, a stack of rebounds and a couple of chase-down-style defensive highlights that turned the building into a madhouse. But his postgame tone was more sober than celebratory, acknowledging that the margin between sixth and tenth in the West is “basically one bad week.”
Stephen Curry’s performance was a roller coaster in the box score. He still managed well over 25 points with five-plus threes, but a few late misses and turnovers hurt in crunchtime. On a pure MVP race scale, the raw player stats keep him in the conversation, but team record has him fighting an uphill battle compared to Jokic, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and others.
On the disappointment front, a couple of key role players on contending teams struggled to hit open looks, the kind of off-night that doesn’t trend on social media but absolutely shows up in film sessions. One veteran forward on a West contender admitted afterward, “When our stars draw doubles and we don’t cash in, that’s how you throw away seeding.”
MVP race: Jokic and SGA on top, Tatum climbing, LeBron and Curry chasing
The MVP race has narrowed, but not in a boring way. Jokic’s nightly triple-double threats and Denver’s strong position in the NBA standings have made him the betting favorite in most books. His resume is built on gaudy player stats, elite advanced numbers and, just as importantly, wins.
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander keeps OKC’s timeline accelerating. With scoring in the low 30s per night on elite true-shooting percentage, plus real defensive impact at the point of attack, SGA is forcing voters to think hard about how much they value team overachievement and two-way play. The Thunder are not supposed to be this good, this fast, but here they are, hovering near the top of the West.
Tatum is very much in the mix, riding Boston’s dominance and steady all-around impact. His candidacy will live or die on whether voters see him as the clear-cut best player on a loaded roster, or part of a co-star equation that spreads credit too thin.
LeBron and Curry, even with their age-defying highlight reels, are in a different tier of the MVP race now. Their player stats are still elite, but the playoff picture for the Lakers and Warriors keeps their candidacies on the fringe. If either team surges late and climbs into the upper half of the bracket, expect the noise around both to spike again.
Injuries, roster tweaks and what they mean
Injuries continue to slice through rotations across the league. Key starters on several playoff teams were either limited or out last night, and every absence ripples through the playoff picture. A missing rim protector turns a top-5 defense into an average one; a sidelined lead guard forces shaky secondary playmakers into crunch-time pick-and-rolls.
Coaches are honest about the balancing act. One East head coach summed it up: “You want rhythm, but you also want healthy bodies. If you chase every single game like it’s Game 7, you might not make it to the actual Game 7.” Expect some contenders to pick their spots with rest days, even if it costs them a seed line in the NBA standings.
On the transaction front, most moves now are about shoring up the margins: 10th-man depth, emergency shooting, a backup big who can soak up six fouls against Jokic or Embiid. None of these names are flashy, but one under-the-radar bench piece can swing a Play-In or Game 5 when a starter gets into early foul trouble.
What’s next: must-watch games and shifting stakes
The schedule ahead is loaded with matchups that could rewrite the bracket by early next week. Any showdown between the Nuggets, Thunder, Timberwolves and Clippers now doubles as a seeding tiebreaker test and a psychological scouting report for a possible second-round clash. Expect playoff-level defense, tightened rotations and coaches to burn timeouts a little faster than they would in November.
In the East, Celtics vs Bucks and any meeting that involves the Heat, Knicks or Sixers has real seeding leverage. One big road win from a lower seed can flip home-court advantage and change how a potential series is framed. Fans should also keep an eye on back-to-backs where contenders might sit one or two core pieces; those are landmines in the playoff race for teams hovering around the Play-In.
For LeBron’s Lakers and Curry’s Warriors, virtually every upcoming night feels like a referendum. Climb into sixth and you avoid the volatility of the Play-In. Slip to ninth or tenth and the entire season hinges on a single cold shooting night or one whistle in the final minute.
As the days tick down, the NBA standings will be the first tab fans open every morning. Stars are emptying the tank, role players are auditioning for playoff minutes in real time and every late-game possession carries extra weight. Buckle up, lock in your League Pass alerts and keep one eye on the live scores and another on the bracket. The real chaos is just getting started.
@ ad-hoc-news.de
Hol dir den Wissensvorsprung der Profis. Seit 2005 liefert der Börsenbrief trading-notes verlässliche Trading-Empfehlungen – dreimal die Woche, direkt in dein Postfach. 100% kostenlos. 100% Expertenwissen. Trage einfach deine E-Mail Adresse ein und verpasse ab heute keine Top-Chance mehr.
Jetzt anmelden.
