“I would say the Miami Heat are going to the finals if Jimmy ‘Buckets’ Butler didn’t get hurt, but I believe in Jalen Brunson to lead the New York Knicks to a win in the Eastern Conference Finals” says Jake Sussberg ’25. The Knicks are currently at 11-1 odds (+1100) to win the Eastern Conference Finals according to DraftKings Sportsbook, however, talk radio show host, Colin Cowherd of The Herd, feels otherwise, explaining “[The Knicks] are so dependent on Jalen Brunson. You can win with one star and energy in the regular season. You’re not beating Philadelphia or Miami with one guy. So I think the Knicks right now are a better story than they are a team.…I think Philadelphia would beat them in about six.”
The National Basketball Association, better known as the NBA, comprises 30 teams divided into two conferences – the Eastern Conference and the Western Conference. The league is home to the world’s best basketball players, coaches, and training facilities. Furthermore, it hosts worldwide celebrities such as the “King,” Lebron James, and the “GOAT,” Michael Jordan. However, the NBA also has a notorious reputation: The players do not care about the 82-game regular season. Fortunately, it is quite the opposite when the playoffs are around the corner. Towards the end of the season in late March and early April, teams that have not yet clinched a spot in the postseason give it their all, displaying why they are on an NBA roster, when according to Runners Athletic, basketball players have a 1 in 12,363 (0.008%) chance of making their way into the pros.
As of right now, the top three records in the East are the 64 wins and 18 losses (64-18) Boston Celtics, the 50-32 New York Knicks, and the 49-33 Milwaukee Bucks. On the other side of the country, the top three records in the West are the Oklahoma City Thunder and Denver Nuggets who both are 57-25, leading the third place Timberwolves who are 56-26. Despite the outstanding regular season records of top teams, not everyone has confidence in the abilities of top-ranked teams to make it all the way to the championships. For example, many commentators, including the aforementioned Colin Cowherd, do not believe that the Knicks will make it past the first round against the Philadelphia 76ers, even though they are seeded higher than the 7th-ranked 76ers.
The NBA playoffs consist of the top 8 teams from each conference based on their win-loss records. Before the playoffs commence, teams not in the top six of their respective conferences now compete in a single round elimination tournament called the “NBA Play In.” The NBA Play-In Tournament, first introduced in the 2020-2021 season, is when teams seeded 7 through 10 in each conference compete for the final playoff spots. The 7th and 8th seeds face off, with the winner securing the 7th seed, while the loser faces the winner of a game between the 9th and 10th seeds for the 8th seed. The playoffs follow a bracket format in which teams face off in a best of seven series, or the team to win four games first. In both conferences, the top seeded team faces the eight seed, the second seeded team faces the seventh seed and so on. The team with the better record in each series receives home court advantage and hosts games 1, 2, and if a team has not yet won four games then also the 5th and 7th game.
As teams advance on, they continue to compete until there is an Eastern Conference champion and a Western Conference Champion. The winners of the conferences go on to compete in the NBA Finals for a chance to make history and take home the Larry O’Brien Championship Trophy. Everyone has their own thoughts on the chances of certain teams. In fact, many disagree with Sussberg and Cowherd, especially American TV personality Stephen A. Smith, who has the Boston Celtics winning it all. He claims “I got them as my favorite. I tell you that there is no team in the NBA that should be able to definitively look at the Boston Celtics and say we’re better.”
