The San Antonio Spurs half of the Western Conference bracket is wide open

The events of Wednesday night have opened up an opportunity for the San Antonio Spurs to make a legitimate postseason run.

Many San Antonio Spurs fans were hoping to match up with the potentially-vulnerable Denver Nuggets in the first round, and their wish was granted on the final night of the regular season.

The Spurs took care of business against the Mavericks at home in Dirk Nowitzki‘s final game, and they were locked in to the seventh seed in the Western Conference after the Thunder pulled out a victory in Milwaukee.

The Timberwolves made it extremely interesting in Denver during the late slate of games Wednesday night, but the Nuggets came back and won a tight one at home to clinch the two seed.

Portland also fell behind at home and completed a furious second half comeback to beat the Kings and secure the three seed causing the Rockets to fall all the way to number four in the standings.

That confluence of events means the three teams in the West with the best net rating (Golden State, Houston, and Utah) are all on the opposite side of the Western Conference bracket as San Antonio.

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This is an extremely lucky break for the Spurs who feared they may have to face the Warriors for the third straight year if they faltered and fell to the eighth seed down the stretch.

We’ve written about how San Antonio has some key advantages that give them a good shot of pulling off a first round upset against Denver.

While the Spurs will still be underdogs in that series, their second round matchup doesn’t seem too scary if they were to get past the Nuggets.

Portland is simply not the same team after the season-ending injury to Jusuf Nurkic, and San Antonio can exploit that weakness down low with former Blazer LaMarcus Aldridge.

C.J. McCollum is also not 100 percent healthy after missing significant time with an injury, which would give the Spurs a chance at another upset if they faced Portland in the second round.

The sixth-seeded Thunder would also be a juicy matchup for San Antonio if OKC were to take down the Blazers in the first round.

Paul George has not looked right ever since he suffered an injury to his shoulder, and he was forced to miss the Thunder’s final game of the season where they had a lot to lose.

Oklahoma City’s defense has regressed over the past few months, and the Spurs would match up pretty well with the current iteration of the Thunder if they met in the second round.

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Obviously Gregg Popovich and the rest of the team will not be looking forward to the second round, but the playoff seedings couldn’t have worked out much better for San Antonio.

First up comes a matchup with the Denver Nuggets. We will have extensive previews and coverage of that first round series at Air Alamo.