The NBA’s Eastern Conference is deeper than it has been in decades, setting up what should be a wild sprint to the playoffs over the final seven weeks of the 2021-22 NBA regular season.
With five teams within 2.5 games of first place in the conference, and just six games separating sixth through 11th place, teams will be swapping spots in the standings on a nightly basis. And, no matter how it shakes out, some good teams — including the preseason title favorites Brooklyn Nets, who currently find themselves in eighth place — will be playing in the play-in tournament.
On top of teams jockeying in the standings, the biggest trade of the season — the James Harden-Ben Simmons swap between the Nets and Philadelphia 76ers — continues to reverberate across the league, and will require both teams to adjust to the arrival of big-name stars over the next several weeks.
The upshot of all of that? It should be a heck of a lot of fun to see how the East playoff picture shakes out. Here’s a look coming out of the All-Star Break at the 12 teams with a shot to make the postseason, listed in order of each team’s conference standing.
When we last saw them … Miami was rolling going into the break. They won six of their past seven and had found a strong rhythm playing behind Jimmy Butler and a solid core of guys who play just like him.
Playoff and title projections:
Caesars’ Eastern Conference odds: +550
Caesars title odds: +1100
FiveThirtyEight’s chance of winning the Finals: 9%
Most impactful moment during the season’s first half: The Heat won 11 of 14 games during a stretch from Dec. 21 to Jan. 19, and they did it almost entirely without Bam Adebayo — who missed all but two games while recovering from thumb surgery. The fact Erik Spoelstra and his staff were able to navigate through the tough times and continue to rack up wins set them up to be atop the East heading into the break.
Must-see game left on the schedule: Nets at Heat, March 26 (8 p.m. ET, NBA TV): This game…
Source : espn
