The Cleveland Cavaliers are the betting favorites to win the NBA championship as we stand on the brink of a new season next Tuesday night. The Cavs are a 14-5 bet to win it all. San Antonio, in spite of its championship pedigree and amazing offseason where they added Lamarcus Aldridge and David West, are […]
The NBA playoffs get started on Saturday afternoon. To set the tone, TheSportsNotebook is running a Tale of the Tape of all 16 teams in the field. Or, to be more precise, we’re running a concise summation of each team’s tale of the tape, so you can read a summary of what they’re about and who they do it with, rather than wading through statistical data.
We’re at about the quarter-pole in the long haul that is the NBA regular season, which paves the way for what can seem like an even longer playoff run. All of which is to say we can’t get too excited about an early results, but the first returns do suggest the NBA Eastern Conference is headed for a historically bad season.
We’re not yet halfway through the regular season, but to look at the standings in the NBA Eastern Conference playoff race, one might conclude it’s already over. Oh, there are battles for seedings to fight over and in the homecourt-friendly NBA that can never be overlooked. But when it comes to the eight teams that qualify for the postseason, there’s a sharp line drawn between the haves and have-nots. Milwaukee is 19-18 and the only teams in shouting distance are Philadelphia, Detroit, Toronto and Orlando. Let’s run through those latter four teams and see if any of them can make the race for the final spot(s) interesting over the next couple months.
The NBA Eastern Conference is muddled by injuries right now, as the middle class tries to sort itself out. Three teams—Chicago, Philadelphia and Indiana—have hopes of eventually emerging as the pre-eminent challenger to the Miami Heat by springtime, but all three have their signature player on the bench. TheSportsNotebook will take a brief look at each team so far this season, who’s stepping up, and what the prospects are for their injured stars.
The NBA season starts up Tuesday night with the Miami Heat getting their rings and hoisting a championship banner in a game against the Boston Celtics. That means it’s time for TheSportsNotebook to run its NBA previews. Unlike baseball or football, where we give each team a complete a preview all its own, pro hoops will just split into conferences.
The league, like hockey, is more postseason-oriented, and we’ll use between now and Christmas Day—a now-traditional showcase day for the NBA—to dig deeper into the strengths and weaknesses of each contender. For now, we’ll start with a basic overview of each conference race, and an Over/Under pick on each team’s projected regular season win total by the Las Vegas sportsbooks. This post focuses on the Eastern Conference.