Why are the suns put as the 3rd seed and the lakers are the 5th seed?

the phoenix suns in 3rd place in the west and the lakers are in 5th when...

they both have the same record and the lakers won the season series between them 3-1

i dont get it,could somebody explain?

Why are the suns put as the 3rd seed and the lakers are the 5th seed?nba live 2006

You should go by the standing of NBA.com

New Orleans-1

San Antonio-2

L.A. Lakers-3

Utah-4

Phoenix-5

Yahoo/sports does a bad job at listing the playoff standings.

Why are the suns put as the 3rd seed and the lakers are the 5th seed?nba gear ,nba teams

Like Neil said the division leaders get 3 of the 4 top spots in their conference. The other 1 spot is the second best team in their division. This is set up so all division winners( no matter how bad the division) get atleast one round of home-court advantage. Before this the 3rd seed could be really bad a easily get elimanated by a 6th seed.
tHEY ARE TIED FOR 3RD DONT WORRY
it's the yahoo system didn't update on the standing or they made a mistake.
Confrence record.
it wuld be 3rd and 4th but that new rule says the divsion leaders have top 4 spot reserved for them therefore utah is 4th

and lakers come before alphabetically but technically they are tied for 3rd

dont worry lakers are better =)
cause that's what it is
Which standing are you looking at? I checked out both ESPN.com and NBA.com and they both have the Fakers in 3rd and $uns in 5th.