WHAT MATTERED MOST

A subjective ranking of the results that mattered most to the playoff bracket.

1. Cleveland Cavaliers 114, Boston Celtics 91

LeBron James might have been the “last person to ask about a regular-season game, dude.” On Wednesday, though, he sure as hell had an answer prepared for all those who had questioned whether the Cavs’ months-long defensive swoon meant they were no longer the team to beat in the Eastern Conference:

The Cavs tore the Celtics apart from the second quarter on, feasting on small and reserve-heavy Boston lineups without a prayer of defending Cleveland groups featuring shooting everywhere and LeBron at the wheel. LeBron scored or assisted on 16 Cavs points during a 22-4 run to open the second quarter that left the Celtics dumbstruck and dazed, and completely quieted the TD Garden crowd.

The C’s would make one more brief run to get within single digits late in the second, but the ending was all but academic. This was LeBron reasserting his primacy, making sure anyone who doubted left Wednesday with a refreshed memory of the significantly higher level that he and his team can reach — and, perhaps, leaving the Celtics wondering if their opportunity to join Cleveland there fell by the wayside when the trade deadline came and went without Paul George or Jimmy Butler donning kelly green.

The win moved Cleveland to 51-27 and dropped Boston to 50-28, giving the Cavs a one-game edge in the race for the No. 1 overall seed in the East with just four games remaining. On top of that, the Cavs also clinched a 3-1 win in their head-to-head season series with the C’s, ensuring that if the two teams finish with the same record, Cleveland will still retain home-court advantage.

2. Los Angeles Lakers 102, San Antonio Spurs 95

This game only really matters in the context of the next one, so we’re going to cover them in one blurb.

3. Golden State Warriors 120, Phoenix Suns 111

We were not expecting the Warriors to clinch home-court advantage throughout the playoffs on Wednesday night. While their win over the Suns seemed preordained even without the resting Draymond Green and Andre Iguodala in the lineup, the Spurs had the luxury of hosting the woeful Lakers without injured point guard D’Angelo Russell in the lineup. The only thing likely to hold them back would be one of Gregg Popovich’s mass rest parties, and both Kawhi Leonard and LaMarcus Aldridge started.

Then the darnedest thing happened — the Lakers took the first quarter 31-14, Popovich opted to rest Leonard and Aldridge for the entire second half, and the visitors weathered a third-quarter comeback to hold on for an unlikely victory. Fill-in starter Tyler Ennis finished with a game-high 19 points on 8-of-14 shooting, and the Spurs went to the line six times all game to fail to offset 43.8 percent shooting from the field.

The loss opened the door for the Warriors, who lost the bulk of a 23-point lead after the first quarter to enter halftime up 58-52. It seems hard to believe they didn’t learn of the Spurs’ result during the break, and that may have compelled them to fight through the absences of the resting Green and Iguodala and fend off a nice effort from a feisty Suns squad to hold on for the win.

Stephen Curry was electric with 42 points (including eight 3-pointers) and 11 assists — just the second time in his career he’s gone for 40 and 10 — and Klay Thompson bounced back from a 2-of-11 first half to finish with a respectable 22 points. Golden State’s 65th win makes them the first team in league history to reach that threshold in three consecutive seasons, all of which have seen them finish with the NBA’s best record.

The Warriors now have the opportunity to reintegrate Kevin Durant into the lineup over their last three games without worrying about seeding or wearing anyone out before the start of the playoffs. They may have some concern with KD disrupting their ongoing 13-game winning streak, but that’s a terrific problem to have. They’re the championship favorites until they lose a series, at which point they cannot win the title. (Look, we don’t make the rules.)

The Spurs might not be too upset they’re locked into the West’s No. 2 spot. For one thing, they were going to end up there anyway, and doing so with a week left on the schedule gives them plenty of time to rest players and prepare for their first-round opponent. Luckily for them, they already know that will be the Memphis Grizzlies. In addition, the bottom half of the West bracket is pretty much decided — all that has to be resolved is the identity of the No. 6 seed, which will almost certainly be the Oklahoma City Thunder. Two rounds against teams from within the division, with relatively light travel, is a nice consolation prize.

4. Houston Rockets 110, Denver Nuggets 104

On Wednesday, our Kelly Dwyer suggested that this game would tell us something about Mike Malone’s Nuggets, one way or another:

At the moment: no, they are not. But only just barely.

Houston took control late in the first quarter and led by double-digits for most of the second, but the Nuggets walked the Rockets down in the third and fought them in a two-possession phone booth for damn near the entire fourth quarter. Denver scratched and clawed to knock off the heavily favored Rockets, and drew within two after center Nikola Jokic tipped home a missed 3 by Wilson Chandler to make the score 103-101 with 1:20 remaining in the fourth.

But then, as he’s done so many times this season, James Harden said goodnight:

Harden drilled a stepback 3 over Denver’s Danilo Gallinari to put Houston up by five with 56 ticks left, and the Rockets won the free-throw shooting contest down the stretch to ice the victory that locked in the No. 3 seed in the Western Conference. Harden finished with 31 points on 19 shots, 10 assists, seven rebounds, three blocks and a steal in 39 minutes; it is a testament to just how ridiculous Russell Westbrook is that this performance might have lost Harden some support in the MVP race.

Houston won despite suffering through an off shooting night — 42.5 percent from the field as a team, 10-for-34 from 3-point range, 26-for-38 at the foul line — because the Nuggets’ woes were even worse. Denver missed 63 shots on Wednesday, going 41-for-104 (39.4 percent) as a team and a staggering 7-for-38 from beyond the arc, with Jokic and guards Jamal Murray and Emmanuel Mudiay combining to miss all 14 triples they took.

Even so, behind the two-way playmaking of Jokic — who finished with 12 points, 19 rebounds, nine assists, five steals and a block — and the scoring of Gallinari (23 points on 8-for-16 shooting) and Gary Harris (17 points on 8-for-14 shooting), the Nuggets were able to hang with the No. 3 team in the West on the road into the final minute. That’s impressive in its own way, but “almost” doesn’t count for much in playoff races.

Valiant or no, the loss still dropped Denver to 37-41, a full game behind the Portland Trail Blazers for the eighth and final playoff spot in the Western Conference. With the Blazers owning the head-to-head tiebreaker, the Nuggets are functionally two full games back with four games left, meaning they’re going to need quite a bit of help from the Minnesota Timberwolves, Utah Jazz, San Antonio Spurs and New Orleans Pelicans — the Blazers’ remaining opponents — while simultaneously taking care of their own business against the Pelicans, Dallas Mavericks and Westbrook’s Oklahoma City Thunder, whom Denver will see twice in the final four games.

That’s an awfully tough path to walk. We might wind up looking back and seeing Harden’s stepback as a dagger for more than just this one game.

5. Miami Heat 112, Charlotte Hornets 99

Midway through this season, the Heat were 11-30 and owned of the league’s No. 29 offense, thanks in part to a paint-bound attack that ranked 19th in the league in 3-point attempts per game and 23rd in makes. In the nearly three months since, though, Miami has completely changed course, rolling up the NBA’s third-best record since mid-January and featuring the NBA’s eighth-best offense in that span, fueled in part by more bombs-away approach that’s seen the Heat take and make a whole lot more long balls.

That shift was on full display on Wednesday, as a Heat team desperately trying to save its season launched 40 triples and canned a franchise-record 21 of them. Star guard Goran Dragic hit five of his nine deep tries as part of a 33-point, four-assist outing to lead the way.

In his first start of the season, forward James Johnson — a remarkable reclamation project who has gone from unable to stick in Dwane Casey’s rotation in Toronto to Erik Spoelstra’s version of Spurs Boris Diaw (minus a few pounds) — went 6-for-7 from beyond the arc, scoring a season-high-tying 26 points on 10-for-12 shooting to go with four rebounds, three assists and two steals. Shooting guard Josh Richardson added 19 points (4-for-7 from 3) with six rebounds and five assists, while center Hassan Whiteside scored 13 points with 20 rebounds and three blocks for the Heat, who stopped a two-game skid.

Miami improved to 38-40, the same record as the Chicago Bulls and Indiana Pacers. As it stands, the Bulls sit in seventh in the East, by virtue of owning the head-to-head tiebreaker over Miami and having a better record within the Central Division than Indiana. Miami nudges Indy for eighth place, because the Heat beat the Pacers twice in three tries this season. Indiana, then, sits in ninth, hoping that either Chicago or Miami stumbles, and that old/new catalyst Lance Stephenson can help Paul George push the Pacers over the finish line and into the postseason.

Wednesday’s loss put Charlotte’s hopes of crossing that line on life support. The Hornets fell to 36-43 on the season, 2 1/2 games behind the Chicago-Miami-Indiana troika with just three games left in their season. Kemba Walker and company will face the Celtics at home on Saturday before finishing the season with a pair of road games against two teams vying for playoff positioning higher up in the Eastern bracket: the Milwaukee Bucks and Atlanta Hawks.

6. Toronto Raptors 105, Detroit Pistons 102

This game would have been a positive for the Raptors even if they’d lost. Star point guard Kyle Lowry returned to action after missing roughly six weeks due to right wrist surgery and showed no ill effects, scoring a game-high 27 points on 9-of-15 shooting with 11 assists. DeMar DeRozan suffered through a 5-of-17 shooting performance but managed to come through with the dagger jumper with 25 seconds remaining, and suddenly everything in Toronto looks much rosier.

That’s in part because they’re now a half-game up on the Wizards for the No. 3 seed with three of their own to play. Toronto also holds the tiebreaker in that matchup via a 2-1 season series win, so they’re in the driver’s seat. Plus, the No. 3 seed looks a lot better now that the Cavs won in Boston. Finishing in that spot would likely allow the Raptors to match up with a middling finisher in the first round and then avoid Cleveland until the conference finals. With Lowry back, perhaps the Raptors can assume the form they planned to take with their February trade for Serge Ibaka. We could be looking at a significant threat in May.

Detroit is now all but eliminated — they’re three games out of a playoff spot and would have to jump three teams to get there. On the plus side, injured point guard Reggie Jackson may have intentionally dressed like head coach Stan Van Gundy, or at least has the style of a more fashionable SVG.

7. Los Angeles Clippers 112, Dallas Mavericks 101

The Clippers are currently involved in the most forgettable race for first-round home-court advantage in recent memory. Perhaps that’s because it’s hard to shake the suspicion they should be accomplishing more. At any rate, they’re now just a half-game back of the Utah Jazz with a tiebreaker in hand. Get pumped, Staples Center!

This particular performance saw the Clippers in excellent form. Blake Griffin starred with 32 points on 11-of-14 shooting, DeAndre Jordan grabbed 20 rebounds, and Chris Paul put up 22 points and 11 assists. Whether any of these lines matter or indicate strong play before the playoffs is anyone’s guess. For that matter, it’s not clear that playing four games at Staples would do much for the Clippers — winning the No. 4 seed might be more valuable just because it would deny it to the Jazz.

8. Oklahoma City Thunder 103, Memphis Grizzlies 100

The most entertaining game of the night unfortunately didn’t mean much for our purposes. The win keeps the Thunder mathematically alive for the No. 5 seed, but the result is most notable for locking the Grizzlies into seventh place. That means they’re headed to San Antonio for Games 1 and 2 of the first round in our first confirmed playoff series.

Whatever. All that stuff is boring. If you haven’t yet, go acquaint yourself with what Russell Westbrook did in the fourth quarter. No, he didn’t finish with his historic 42nd triple-double to break Oscar Robertson’s single-season record. What he did was way better.

MVP OF THE DAY

A subjective choice for the player most valuable to his team, on just one day and determined by the NBA playoff picture.

Westbrook was undoubtedly the best player in the league on Wednesday night, but Lowry’s performance means the most to the shape of the postseason. It’s rare for a player to return from a 21-game layoff and immediately become the best guy on the court, but that’s what Lowry did on Wednesday. He looked like his star self — capable of scoring in several ways, setting up teammates, and defending well at the other end. If he continues to look this good, then the Raptors are a whole different beast heading into the postseason and perhaps the Cavs’ greatest competition, no matter how the seeds shake out.

THE MOMENT OF TRUTH

A subjective choice for the most important play of the day as determined by all the same stuff listed in the last section.

The Cavs were already well on their way to a win when Channing Frye dunked home this Kyrie Irving miss, but it generally stands in for every way they decimated the Celtics. You know things are bad when a spot-up shooter gets into the lane unimpeded for such an easy put-back.

Dan Devine (@yourmandevine) also contributed to this post.

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Eric Freeman is a writer for Ball Don’t Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at efreeman_ysports@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!

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