LOS ANGELES — Brandan Wright remembers how good the Golden State Warriors felt about themselves when he was a rookie in the 2007-08 season. They were the National Basketball Association’s top scoring team. They had won 48 games — the franchise’s best record in 14 seasons and a six-game improvement over the previous one, when they had upset the top-seeded Dallas Mavericks in the Western Conference playoffs.

The Warriors appeared to be a threat to the Los Angeles Lakers, the eventual conference champions, having beaten them twice and losing another in overtime.

They had a lot going for them — except they did not make the playoffs.

“It was a weird feeling,” Wright said. “We had a great season, and we were going home.”

The same thing is about to happen to a team in the Western Conference. Four teams are chasing 50-win seasons, but there are only three playoff berths available as the regular season winds to a close on April 16. As play begins today, the sixth-place Warriors (47-29) hold a 1 1/2-game lead over the seventh-place Mavericks (46-31), who lead the Memphis Grizzlies (45-31) and the Phoenix Suns (45-31) by half a game.

San Antonio (59-17), Oklahoma City (55-20), the Los Angeles Clippers (54-23) and Houston (50-25) have clinched playoff spots in the West, and Portland (49-28) needs one more win to secure a postseason berth.

“Every game is crucial,” said Wright, now a reserve forward with the Mavericks. “A loss here, a loss there, and at the end of the season, you could be on the outside looking in.”

For the one unlucky team, the gnashing of teeth will only become worse if it looks to the Eastern Conference, where the New York Knicks, the Atlanta Hawks or the Cleveland Cavaliers will win that conference’s eighth and final playoff spot.

As of now, that would be the Hawks, who are 33-42 — or 11 1/2 games worse than Phoenix and Memphis.

If the Suns, who are in ninth place in the West because they lost their season series to the Grizzlies, were in the Eastern Conference, their 45-31 record would have them in third place.

“It’s going to be frustrating, but that’s how it is in the West,” Dallas star Dirk Nowitzki said Friday after a superb 27-point, nine-rebound, five-assist performance in a 107-95 victory over the Lakers. “There’s some good teams fighting, trying to get in.”

In the Eastern Conference, which has few good teams, there is skepticism over how hard some of them are fighting to get in the playoffs. Hawks general manager Danny Ferry raised eyebrows last week when he said he did not pay much attention to the standings. The Boston Celtics, the Orlando Magic, the Philadelphia 76ers and the Milwaukee Bucks have made no pretenses about competing for the playoffs, and the Chicago Bulls have done so despite trading one of their more valuable players, Luol Deng, to duck under the luxury-tax threshold.

In the other conference, the competition is fierce.

“It’s been like this for two months,” Mavericks coach Rick Carlisle said. “It’s been going on a long time, so, yeah, it’s been intense, but that’s the way it should be.”

The absence of balance between the conferences is nothing new. In five of the past seven seasons, a team with a winning record in the Western Conference missed the playoffs, while a team with a losing record qualified in the East.

The Mavericks left Los Angeles late Friday in a buoyant mood, quite a turnaround from last Tuesday’s crushing loss at home to Golden State. It came after the Warriors’ Stephen Curry hit a shot at the buzzer and Jermaine O’Neal was not called for goaltending, which the NBA later said was a mistake. Dallas, however, rebounded to beat the Clippers at Staples Center on Thursday and the Lakers the next night.

The Mavericks appear to have the easiest path to the playoffs. They have no more back-to-back games, which could sap the legs of veterans Nowitzki, Shawn Marion and Vince Carter. They get the top team in the West, San Antonio, at home, while Phoenix and Memphis play the Spurs on the road. And the Mavericks’ next two games are against struggling teams, Sacramento and Utah, while Phoenix is playing the Oklahoma City Thunder, the No. 2 team in the West, and Memphis plays San Antonio and the Miami Heat, the two-time defending NBA champion.

In the final week of the season, Phoenix, Memphis and Dallas all play one another.

“On a night (Friday) when Phoenix goes into Portland and wins, which wasn’t expected, and Memphis obviously won as well, so this was definitely a much-needed win,” Nowitzki said. “There are only five games left. We’ve got to take it one game at time, which is the worst cliche ever, but it’s true.”

Nowitzki said that last season, in which he struggled with injuries and Dallas had its 12-season playoff streak snapped, left him with one goal this season: returning to the postseason.

“It was tough, not fun sitting at home watching the playoffs and all these teams compete,” Nowitzki said. “Our goal from the get-go was making the playoffs. That’s what we’re working on, but we still have a long way to go.”

On Friday, when many of the Mavericks’ guards struggled, they got effective performances from Samuel Dalembert, who had 14 points and 14 rebounds, and Wright. He took 10 shots and he made 10 shots, a flawless evening and a fine example of what the margin for error looks like, not just for Dallas, but also Memphis and Phoenix. They may have to be perfect too.