We’re entering the final stretch of the NBA season, and as the playoff season approaches, we’re here to take a look at the teams who look to be the strongest contenders in the postseason. With the Oklahoma City Thunder’s 113-108 victory over the Orlando Magic yesterday, the defending champions have already clinched themselves a spot in the 2025-2026 NBA Playoffs, and with a highly competitive Western Conference, the race to book the remaining 7 spots will be a highly intense watch.
The Thunder have dominated throughout the season, dropping only 15 games in a 69-game span. They hold a fairly comfortable spot at the top of the Western Conference being three games ahead of the San Antonio Spurs who hold the 2-seed and 10 ½ games ahead of the Los Angeles Lakers who hold the 3-seed. While the Thunder find themselves at the top of the chain, their 1-seed is not secured, and when factoring in their lopsided H2H (head-to-head) against the Spurs in which they trail the season series 4-1, things can get pretty interesting if the defending champions begin to lose focus.
While the top 2 contenders of the Western Conference look pretty strong, things begin to get a little murky as we take a look at seeds 3-7. The Lakers are the only team within the seeds to not be locked in a tie, while the Rockets, Nuggets, and Timberwolves all hold a 3-way tie for the 4-seed. While the Rockets lead the tiebreaker because they have one fewer loss than the other two teams, the Nuggets lead the H2H against both teams meaning that they would claim the highest position of the 3 if the teams tie at the end of the year. The Phoenix Suns fall right outside of the club with a 39-30 record as they lie 3 games behind the Nuggets and Timberwolves. They claim the highest seed of the play-in teams at 7, while the Clippers, Warriors, and Trail Blazers claim the remaining seeds respectively. The play-in tournament features seeds 7-10 as they fight for the final two spots (overall 7 and 8 seeds) in the playoffs. While the Sacramento Kings remain the only team to be officially eliminated from the postseason, I think it’s safe to say that seeds 11-14 won’t be catching up to the party any time soon.
The Eastern Conference seems to be tight as well as the Pistons lead the pack at 49-19. Seeds 2-4 are currently up for grabs as the Celtics, Knicks, and Cavaliers are all scratching their ways to the top. Seeds 5-10 are incredibly tight with the gap between the fifth-seeded Raptors and the tenth-seeded Hornets lying at only 4 games, meaning that the Raptors could drop from a comfortable playoff spot to the final spot of the play-in tournament if they manage to lose all of their games in the next 3 weeks—a pretty crazy fact if you ask me. The Magic and Heat are both within 1 game of stealing the Raptors’ spot at No. 5 in the East, and the Hawks and Sixers are 2 games away from clawing their way up. The Nets, Wizards, and Pacers have been eliminated from playoff contention, and the Bucks and Bulls need a strong winning streak in the concluding stages of the season if they want to book a spot in the playoffs.
So I think it’s safe to say that this year’s NBA Playoffs won’t disappoint. As each team is looking to seal their spots at the top of the game, the final games of the season could give us a preview of a historic postseason and highly competitive NBA Final.
