only 5 points difference from Real Madrid and if Atletico Madrid can continue to maintain consistency then it is not impossible that they will be able to catch up and occupy 2nd place in the standings.
but I think the top La Liga teams don't seem to have too much desire if they don't compete to be champions.
like Real Madrid, they will find it very difficult to catch Barcelona at the top of the standings and maybe because of that it makes their focus and desire to watch La Liga matches not as passionate as before, maybe Real Madrid will focus on the European stage and Atletico could take advantage of that to be able to finish in 2nd place in the final La Liga standings.
I agree that ATM has a "possibility" to catch up to second place, but Real would probably not allow that at all. I think it is obvious that we are going to end up with a situation where it is not going to be as simple as this to keep them losing, that's not a long sustained thing for Real, and that's why I highly doubt anything would change about that neither.
It's obvious that we are going to end up with something much bigger and better coming up from Real, they are going to dominate the rest of the season probably, because they are good and they want to and that's good enough reason for them to do that, maybe they failed so far, but they will do so from here on out.