But for now the Marlins look like the Marlins again, and the Phillies — the team just below them in the standings — look like the Phillies.
Even in the weak Eastern Conference, neither the Knicks nor the Bobcats have much of a chance at reaching the playoffs with 25 games remaining and only one team, the Miami Heat, below them in the standings.
Despite facing three clubs below them in the standings in their last three fixtures, the Revs only managed a single point in that stretch a 1-1 home draw with the Philadelphia Union.
It was always a little one-sided, with the Boston fans needing to hate the Yankees far more than Yankees fans needed to feel much of anything about a team that was so often far below them in the standings.
From those missteps to the awkward one Griffin took before crumpling to the ground in the Redskins' loss to the Seahawks, this was an unsightly quartet of games, exposing how fundamentally flawed most of the lowest-seeded playoff teams were this year and how further flawed the teams below them in the standings must have been.
In it, Ballmer is selling us the idea that even if Shelly Sterling is hanging around to remind us of her husband, and even if the Clippers remain LA's second team while the Lakers fall below them in the standings, that things will be getting better under his watch.
On top of that, three teams right below them in the standings have played one or two fewer games than KC, which if they win those games in hand could see KC fall out of the playoff picture, if only temporarily.
Two days later, they lost by 9 at Philadelphia, one of the worst teams in the N.B.A. Searching for a cause, forward Gerald Wallace said that, for whatever reason, the Nets seemed to take teams below them in the standings for granted.
Wales could hardly have asked for a kinder opening fixture - a trip to an Andorran side who are ranked 199th in the world, 158 places below them in the standings, and have lost their last 44 competitive games.
After recent up-and-down performances against Phoenix and Sacramento, teams well below them in the standings, inconsistency finally caught up with the Clippers in a 114-110 loss to the Dallas Mavericks at American Airlines Center.
Any team below the Rangers in the standings could claim him before the Rangers.
