Where the NBA playoff (and tanking) races stand with less than a month to go

New York Times

17-03-2025

What better time to update you on all postseason races than right now? Plus an extended NBA Stock Report?
Here's your latest NBA Rewind!
📈 Minnesota Timberwolves (40-29): With the Cleveland Cavaliers losing on Sunday, the Wolves are officially the hottest team in basketball. They've run off eight wins in a row and are battling the Golden State Warriors to get out of the Play-In Tournament. The thing about this particular run for the Wolves is it's happening with the defense just being fine, especially by their standards. They are lighting up teams with an offensive rating over 125 and a true shooting that has been flirting with 65 percent the entire time. Julius Randle and Jaden McDaniels are playing their best basketball of the season. It's not exactly a murderers' row of opponents during this streak, but the Wolves are hammering the teams in front of them.
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📉 Miami Heat (29-38): The Heat are in a bad place right now. They've lost seven straight games, and they're falling down the Play-In standings in the East. They're now just a game ahead of the Chicago Bulls, and they can't score. During the last two weeks, they have a 105.0 offensive rating. That's the worst offensive rating by a lot. The defense has not been bad, but they can't hit shots. The trio of Bam Adebayo, Tyler Herro and Andrew Wiggins just isn't enough. They're very close to having a road game for the 9-10 matchup in the Play-In.
📈 Houston Rockets (43-25): The Rockets are once again one of the hottest teams in basketball! They're on a six-game winning streak and have vaulted up the West standings to the current No. 2 seed. Granted, the schedule has been pretty light for them during this streak, but you can only play the teams in front of you. And they're taking care of business. The Rockets have beaten the New Orleans Pelicans (twice), Orlando Magic, Phoenix Suns, Dallas Mavericks and Bulls during this streak. They have a chance of pushing this pretty far, though. Their next seven games are against the Philadelphia 76ers, Magic (road), Heat (road), Denver Nuggets, Atlanta Hawks, Utah Jazz (road) and Suns (road). There are a couple of tough ones in there, but the Rockets' defense is suffocating, and their offense has been excellent.
📉 Utah Jazz (15-53): I wouldn't say the Jazz are playing great basketball. Now, it's not an outright disaster, which is weird to say considering they've lost nine straight games and just lost to Minnesota by 26. For the most part, the Jazz are putting up a good fight during this stretch. Seven of those nine losses have been by single digits. They lost to Toronto twice, Washington and whatever's left of Philadelphia … so Quentin Grimes. The Jazz are trying to develop the young guys, and they're getting good minutes, but this team can't win.
📈 Golden State Warriors (39-28): The Warriors are the second-hottest team in basketball, having won seven straight games. The Jimmy Butler trade has been entirely transformative for them. For the NBA fans who don't like Butler, their response on social media has been, 'Just you wait until he becomes a team cancer!' Well … he only disrupts the harmony when a team won't pay him, and the Warriors already paid him. The Warriors are 14-1 with Butler in the lineup, and he's not even scoring lately. He has 32 total points in the last three games combined. The Warriors look like they're back.
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📉 Southwest Defense: Over the last two weeks, the three worst defensive teams in the NBA reside in the Southwest Division of the Western Conference. One of the teams is tanking because of injuries. Another team is starting to tank because of injuries. And the third team is going through one of the most unbelievable midseason Q Rating 180s we've ever seen. If you guessed the first team is the Pelicans, you're correct. They have the third-worst defense over the last two weeks, with a 124.6 defensive rating and a 1-6 record. If you guessed the second team is the San Antonio Spurs, then you nailed it. Victor Wembanyama has been out, and De'Aaron Fox's season just ended. They're giving up a league-worst 128.8 defensive rating during their last seven games, but surprisingly are 4-3. If you knew the third team was the Mavericks, then you must have read The Misery Index last week. They have the 29th-ranked defensive rating at 126.4 over the last two weeks and a 1-7 record. Just to put that in perspective, the Pelicans' 118.6 defensive rating for the season is the worst in the NBA.
GO DEEPER
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We've got less than a month left in the regular season! We've never felt more alive! Until the playoffs begin and progress. Then, we'd have really never felt more alive. There's no better time to check in on the postseason races we've got going on than right now. Here's every race you should know about when it comes to seeding in the East and West, including the Play-In Tournament campaigns.
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The race for the No. 1 seed in the East is all but over. Mathematically, the Boston Celtics (49-19) are still in the mix for the top spot, but they're 7.5 games behind the Cavaliers (56-11) with 15 games left for Cleveland and 14 games left for Boston. We can call that one, just like we can lock in the Celtics for the No. 2 seed. The New York Knicks (42-24) are six games behind the Celtics with 16 games left, so we can call that one too.
I'm going to assume the Knicks can tread water until Jalen Brunson is back and if Karl-Anthony Towns doesn't get injured. New York has a four-game lead on Milwaukee. Also, it owns the season-series tiebreaker, so that four-game lead is really like five games.
We have the Milwaukee Bucks, Indiana Pacers and Detroit Pistons all battling it out for the No. 4 seed in the East, and none of these teams is in danger of falling into the pit of despair — otherwise known as the East Play-In pool. Here's where the Bucks, Pacers and Pistons stand.
We should probably feel pretty comfortable with the Bucks here because they have Giannis Antetokounmpo and Damian Lillard, but I think I'm leaning toward expecting the Pacers to move up to fourth. Their remaining schedule is easy, they have a favorable number of home games and they're the healthiest/most available of the three teams. Milwaukee is the most balanced of the three in terms of offense and defense, but the Pacers might be in the best place for success. The final two games between the Bucks and Pistons to end the season could ultimately be the deciders.
We've got just four teams currently in the Play-In Tournament shuffle vying for positioning with the 7-10 spots. No offense to Toronto, Brooklyn and Philadelphia, but nobody believes you want in on this. The Raptors are the closest to Chicago, and they're 4.5 games back. We can focus on only the teams currently in the mix. So, let's break down what that looks like the rest of the season.
The only team that is a potential threat to either Cleveland or Boston is the Orlando Magic. And even then, we're stretching the definition of threat because of their season-ending injuries and inability to score. They would, however, be a real pain to deal with because of how hard they play and how good they are at defense. I expect them to end up seventh in the East and hosting the Play-In matchup against Atlanta. Or maybe it'll stay how it is with Atlanta hosting. But it will be those two in that 7-8 game.
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Miami and Chicago just aren't serious as a threat. Neither of them is likely to make the actual playoffs, and the Heat are so bad right now they might not even be able to host that 9-10 game against Chicago.
We knew all season the Washington Wizards (15-51) and Charlotte Hornets (17-50) would be in the hunt for Cooper Flagg, and they have not disappointed. They're a few games away from being mathematically eliminated from the Play-In Tournament. These two teams are jostling with Utah and New Orleans for the top odds to land the No. 1 pick.
The other tanking battle right now is happening between the Raptors (24-44), 76ers (23-44) and Nets (23-45). These teams aren't going to charge toward the Play-In Tournament and try to challenge Chicago. They're looking to lose games and fall down the standings, which means falling up Tankathon.com. It's even more dire for the Sixers to lose these games because, if they don't land a top-six selection in the draft, their pick goes to Oklahoma City for taking on Al Horford's salary in 2020.
Let's go through the West races, and let me tell you: It's going to be an absolute mess. I mean that in the best way possible. If you like chaos on the court and in the standings, you East Coasters will want to stay up for some late-night hoops.
The Oklahoma City Thunder (56-12) are 13 games ahead of Houston, Denver and Memphis with 14 games left to play. As long as they get to 58 wins, they're the top seed. I feel pretty confident the most dominant regular-season team in league history can find a way to go at least 2-12 the rest of the way.
The race for the No. 2 seed is going to be madness. We have three teams currently with the same record, and the Los Angeles Lakers are right behind that group by one game and tied with them in the loss column. On top of that, everybody has a tough schedule the rest of the way. Let's break down where each team is.
I don't even know how to guess at how this might go. I guess I'll ride with Houston because it has the potential to hold all three tiebreakers. That's going to be the big deal here, and you're only going to be able to follow that by bookmarking this page. Denver seems to be losing a bit of steam, but getting beat by the Wizards will have that kind of effect on you. Memphis just got back Jaren Jackson Jr., so it should be healthy enough to make another push. And if the Lakers can continue to stay afloat until LeBron is back, they've played some of the best basketball in the league over the last month and a half.
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Denver and Memphis are both starting road trips this week, and those will likely set the tone for how much they can keep pace.
Even though these teams are within shouting distance of the Lakers in the standings, they're going to have to figure out how to make the top six in the West before they can think about moving up to fifth. Avoiding the Play-In is huge, but it also means you might be getting Nikola Jokić in the first round. Let's check out 6-8 in the West.
Unfortunately for the Clippers, they have a gauntlet in front of them the rest of the season, and it feels like they'll probably settle right into eighth in the West —barring injuries elsewhere.
Even though Golden State looks like the best team of these three, I'd pick the Wolves to end up sixth in the West. They have only six more games against playoff teams. They do have a five-game road trip to start April. The Warriors have a six-game road trip in the middle of this run, but only two of the games will be tough.
Aside from Sacramento, I can't believe we're getting a 'by default' entry into the West Play-In Tournament. You expect to get one or three of those in the East, but the West? That's absurd. Two of these teams have to make it, and lumping Sacramento in with these other three feels like lumping Orlando in with its group in the Eastern Conference.
Sacramento is fine and should be safe. I can't imagine the Kings have to worry about any of these teams charging up the standings to challenge them for ninth.
As for the rest, maybe Anthony Davis getting back to health, along with Dereck Lively II and Daniel Gafford, will bring some good life to the Mavericks and make them interesting for good reasons. Phoenix looks like it actively loathes playing together. If there were basketball karma or gods, Portland would get the 10th spot. The Trail Blazers seem to want it the most. My guess is Phoenix gets in there with the tiebreaker, but I don't how it's possible to feel confident about the Suns with anything positive.
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The Jazz (15-53) and Pelicans (18-50) are officially eliminated from the Play-In mix. We knew the Jazz would likely be in this position by season's end, but maybe not this severely. The Pelicans have been a huge shock compared to how we felt about them at the end of last season. Injuries were just too much for them. As mentioned above, they're in the mix with Charlotte and Washington to end up with top-three lottery odds for the No. 1 pick.
The Spurs (28-38) are being thrown in here too. With Wembanyama and Fox out for the season, it's only a matter of time before they start sliding down the standings. We'll see if Chris Paul or any of the young, good wings end up joining them, or if the Spurs go back to running Jeremy Sochan at the point. The best San Antonio can do is end up with the eighth-best lottery odds, which would give it a 6 percent chance at the top pick and 26.3 percent for a top-four selection.
(Top photo of Julius Randle: Justin Edmonds / Getty Images)