Don't expect any changes to playoffs

The Houston Rockets' 22-game winning streak, which ended Tuesday against Kevin Garnett and Boston, vaulted them -- in eight weeks -- from potential playoff outsiders to the top of the fierce Western Conference.

A two-game losing streak followed before a victory at Golden State on Friday. If a losing stretch grew to any length, the Rockets could find themselves right back where they started.

"They lose four or five in a row and they could fall right out of it," Timberwolves coach Randy Wittman said. "That goes for everybody. It's that crazy."

The 2000-01 Rockets are the best NBA team to ever miss the playoffs. Houston went 45-37 that season, two games behind a Wolves team that claimed the eighth and final playoff spot in the West.

Now, the Denver Nuggets -- or Golden State, Dallas or even conceivably San Antonio -- could approach 50 victories and not reach the playoffs in the West, while as many as four teams with .500 records or worse could make them in the East.

That disparity has renewed a conversation throughout the league about the playoff format and whether another change is needed.

"I think the league will take a look at it," San Antonio coach Gregg Popovich said. "They changed it last year with the seedings. It'd be great to have the best 16 teams in there. That seems logical, I think."

Logical, perhaps. But not practical, it seems.

The league revised the playoff format before the 2006-07 season to ensure the top two teams in each conference can't meet until the conference finals. That was done after Dallas and San Antonio -- two 60-game winners who had the West's best two records even though they play in the same conference -- met in the second round, and Dallas won on the road in a Game 7 overtime.

NBA Commissioner David Stern said a league reaction to the disparity between the two conferences isn't forthcoming, and the little guy seemed a bit defensive about it.

"Have you ever asked Bud Selig that about the American and National Leagues?" Stern asked, referring to baseball's commissioner. "My guess is that no one has. I feel like I'm getting picked on. But I understand the question and the answer is we have an unbalanced schedule for those of you who haven't given the thought or been peppered with it the way I have."

That unbalanced schedule means the Wolves and the other Western Conference teams play Eastern teams only twice a year, once at home and once away. The only way to pick the league's top 16 teams, Stern said, is to have everybody play everybody else the same number of times.

"But that is not very appetizing to me because then you lose the kind of rivalries -- some would say bitter rivalries -- that grow up," Stern said. "And you'd be giving that up."

Wait a while, Wolves Vice President of Basketball Operations Kevin McHale says, and it will all come back around. That's why he thinks there won't be, or shouldn't be, a change in the playoff format.

"Everything goes in cycles in sports," he said. "If you're on top, you're going to be on the bottom at some point. That's just the way it is."