Hornets can still jump Nets, Cavs for 7th. Here are their tiebreakers with 1 game left

Update: Play-in tournament seeds have been set. Find out where the Hornets will play here.

Break out the rabbit’s foot. Get a horseshoe. Pluck a four-leaf clover.

Whatever is the Charlotte Hornets’ choice item to conjure up a little good luck, now is the time to tuck it in their pockets and carry it with them for the next couple of days. They might need to muster up as much positive karma as they can.

Thanks to pummeling Chicago 133-117 at United Center on Friday night, earning a rare victory on the second night of a back-to-back, things are about to get interesting on the final day of the regular season Sunday. After nearly reaching the 82-game finish line, it’s all come down to this.

Even with all their hiccups sandwiched between their impressive winning stretch over the past month, the Hornets are still in position to host a play-in tournament game next week. It’s not something they can accomplish on their own and it’s not going to be possible if they don’t knock off Washington on Sunday afternoon at Spectrum Center.

But the prospect is dangling in front of them.

“That’s the goal,” said Kelly Oubre, who eclipsed Dell Curry for the most 3-pointers made as a reserve in franchise history. “That’s the ultimate goal, is to allow ourselves the best possible positioning in the play-in and further on in the postseason. So we’ve got to take care of each and every game. We’ve got an important one against Washington coming up. Take care of that one and see where the chips fall.”

Here’s the thing: They can spill in a number of directions.

Heading into the finale, the Hornets (42-39) sit in a tie with Atlanta for ninth place and are a full game behind Brooklyn and Cleveland for seventh place in the Eastern Conference. The Hawks play in Houston on Sunday, while the Nets host Indiana and the Cavaliers square off against Milwaukee. Those games, along with the Hornets’ tilt with Washington, will all tip off at 3:30 p.m.

Should the results break in the most favorable fashion for the Hornets — albeit it’s the unlikeliest scenario — they could finish as high as seventh place. For that to happen, the Cavs, Nets and Hawks have to lose.

That would result in a three-way tie between the Hornets, Brooklyn and Cleveland. The Hornets win the tiebreaker if it unfolds that way. In essence, they hold the tiebreaker over two of the three teams they are jockeying with for position.

So why can’t the Hornets finish ahead of the Hawks if they both win their last game? By virtue of Atlanta’s victory over Washington on Thursday night, the Hawks clinched the two-way tiebreaker with the Hornets because although they split the season series 2-2, Atlanta has the better division record and the Hornets can’t catch up to them.

In the event of a four-way tie, the team with the best winning percentage in all games among the tied teams gets seventh place. The order in that case would put the Nets seventh, Hawks eighth, Hornets in ninth and Cleveland 10th.

Should the Nets and Hawks lose Sunday and the Hornets and Cavaliers win, Charlotte would become the No. 8 seed with the head-to-head tiebreaker over Brooklyn.

Got that?

“It should be exciting,” coach James Borrego said. “We’ve put ourselves in a great position. For us, where we’ve come from, to (have) this opportunity at home to go for 43 wins this season, that’s fantastic. I couldn’t be more proud of this group. I’m really excited for them. I hope we embrace that game Sunday, which I believe we will.

“And that’s what we can control. The standings, the rest of that stuff will take care of itself. Right now we just focus on winning a game Sunday and playing the right way.”

That means doing everything that’s worked well to propel them to a 12-6 mark leading into their matchup with Washington, allowing them to secure the franchise’s first season finishing above .500 since 2015-16. The 21-20 road mark they posted is the best since 2001-02.

They’re rolling again and they’re hoping to keep riding the wave of that momentum.

“Back-to-back wins are definitely big,” LaMelo Ball said. “Just getting every win for real is big. Going into that play-in with some wins will definitely help. So play that (next) one and just try to get that win.”

This story was originally published April 9, 2022 at 6:00 AM.

Roderick Boone

The Charlotte Observer

Roderick Boone joined the Observer in September 2021 to cover the Charlotte Hornets and NBA. In his more than two decades of writing about the world of sports, he’s chronicled everything from high school rodeo to a major league baseball no-hitter to the Super Bowl to the Finals. The Long Island native has deep North Carolina roots and enjoys watching “The Fresh Prince of Bel Air” endlessly. Support my work with a digital subscription