NBA Contenders and Pretenders: Who’s Poised for a Deep Playoff Run?

With the start of the NBA playoffs only weeks away, plenty of shuffling will commence before each conference’s play-in tournament and subsequent playoff matchups.

Until then, the top-heavy East and jam-packed West will resolve themselves, with the 16 qualifying teams looking to recreate the runs that the runner-up Dallas Mavericks and Finals champion Boston Celtics made a season ago.

In the Eastern Conference, Cleveland’s 57-14 mark has the Cavaliers on pace to contend for the franchise’s single-season win record of 66, set in the 2008-09 campaign. Even losing four of their last five games, Cleveland still leads the second-place Celtics by five games. Despite the Cavaliers’ historic regular-season run to this point, the East still runs through Boston.

Eastern Conference Contender: Boston Celtics

When the Boston Celtics hoisted the Larry O’Brien Championship Trophy after last June’s dominant playoff run, a sigh of relief came over the franchise as the team finally got its title in the Jayson Tatum/Jaylen Brown era.

Nine months later, it would come as a surprise to nobody to find the Celtics playing late into the summer again. Sure, Cleveland’s path to the probable top seed in the conference has been impressive, but what’s going to stunt Boston’s chances of reappearing on the league’s biggest stage?

Since a head-scratching home loss to the Dallas Mavericks on Feb. 6, the Celtics have won 16 of 19 games and are continuing to gain strength. Tatum is in the midst of another All-Star season, leading Boston with 27.1 points, 8.7 rebounds and 5.9 assists per game. Brown has followed his Finals MVP performance with a 22.8 ppg clip. The only worry for half of Boston’s two-headed monster is a lingering right knee injury for Brown, which has cost him four of the Celtics’ last five games. Nonetheless, the core returners of Kristaps Porzingis, Derrick White, Payton Pritchard and Jrue Holiday know what it takes to make another deep run through the conference.

Vegas doesn’t seem too worried about Boston’s second-place seeding either, with FanDuel currently giving the Celtics the best odds (-135) to win the East.

Eastern Conference Pretender: New York Knicks

The New York Knicks are closing in on clinching a bid to a third consecutive postseason appearance, an impressive feat after missing the playoffs in nine of their last 10 seasons. At 44-26, New York has a comfortable hold on the East’s No. 3 seed, but sits 12½ games behind Cleveland and 7½ behind Boston. So what’s going to hold the Knicks back from challenging the East’s powers? Themselves.

The age-old criticism of Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau is that he runs his teams into the ground with grueling practices and excessive minutes played by his starters. This year is no different. New York’s five leading scorers — Jalen Brunson (who has missed three weeks with an ankle injury), Karl-Anthony Towns, Mikal Bridges, OG Anunoby and Josh Hart — each average at least 35 minutes per game. Compare that to Cleveland star Donovan Mitchell, who tops the Cavaliers with just over 31 mpg.

Thibodeau has been around the league long enough to understand that tired legs can cause trouble in the postseason, but it took New York assistant Rick Brunson to convince Thibodeau to clear the bench late in Saturday’s blowout win over the Washington Wizards.

The Knicks have the star power to play with anybody in the East, but they’ll need a healthy core to contend.

Western Conference Contender: Oklahoma City Thunder

Sure, this isn’t going out on a limb, but how can you argue that the 59-12 Thunder aren’t going to be among the toughest outs in next month’s playoffs? Oklahoma City’s .831 winning percentage is on pace to finish as the NBA’s sixth-best ever, and the highest mark since the 73-win 2015-16 Golden State Warriors.

Last year, OKC could have easily been labeled a pretender on this list. The Thunder compiled a 57-win season but bowed out in the second round as the No. 1 seed to the Dallas Mavericks. Fast forward to the near conclusion of this campaign, and Oklahoma City boasts the probable league MVP in Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (32.9 ppg), alongside budding stars in Jalen Williams and Chet Holmgren. The Thunder are hitting their stride with an 11-1 mark in March, and the team ranks in the top five in both points scored and allowed per game.

However, maybe the most important factor in this year’s Thunder is something they didn’t have in last season’s playoffs — experience.

Western Conference Pretender: Memphis Grizzlies

Last season was a year to forget for Memphis, with the club missing the playoffs for the first time in four seasons after posting a 27-55 record. Not wanting to further the bad taste in the Grizzlies’ mouths into this year’s postseason, the group will need to find ways to score the basketball without superstar Ja Morant.

Dealing with a flurry of injuries, Morant has played in only 43 of Memphis’ 71 games. The Grizzlies are 28-15 with Morant, and 15-13 without him. The thrilling sixth-year guard has missed Memphis’ last four games with a hamstring injury and currently has no timetable for a return. The Grizzlies have dropped three in a row and have mustered just 41 and 42 second-half points, respectively, in the last two losses against the Trail Blazers and Clippers.

At 43-28, Memphis has still played well enough to find itself in the fifth spot in the West, but just 2½ games separate the group from the play-in tournament — an event the Grizzlies don’t want to find themselves in, especially without Morant’s help.