5 Storylines to Follow Going into the Playoffs
“What have you done for me lately?” is a classic sports mantra that front offices use in contract negotiations, media uses in evaluating players, and I will be using today to predict which teams will succeed in the playoffs and which will flop.
Thanks to the NBA’s long season, there are always teams who struggle at the start of the season, stay in the dark for a few months, and then come on strong at the end of the year. I trust these teams in the playoffs. The teams that I don’t trust are the ones that start hot but cool down considerably as the playoffs approach.
I picked out five of the most important team trends that I believe are signs of what is to come in the playoffs. Keep reading to find out who is destined for success and who is in trouble.
1. The Clippers Net Rating When Fully Healthy
The Thunder and Celtics are 15-2 in their last 17 games and have proven to be the two best teams in the league throughout the last two seasons. Yet, it’s been the Clippers who have led the NBA in net rating for the last 17 games which is over 20% of the whole season.
LA is 14-3 with a net rating of 15.2 in that span. They are second in defensive rating which is consistent with the strong defensive effort they’ve stifled opponents with all season, but their offense being ranked third is what has them cruising through the final stretch of the season. For their first 61 games, they were 22nd in offensive rating, trailing subpar teams such as the Heat, Bulls, and Spurs.
Their starting lineup of James Harden, Kris Dunn, Norman Powell, Kawhi Leonard, and Ivica Zubac has played just 16 games together but is a +2.6 per game. That’s fairly mediocre for a starting lineup, but the Clippers have a rabbit that they can pull out of their hat at any time. Their lineup of Harden, Powell, Leonard, Zubac, and Derrick Jones Jr. is a +5.4 in the 185 minutes they’ve played together which is first in the entire league among lineups that have at least 10 games together.
The Clippers are incredibly well-coached and when healthy, they are one of the four best teams in the Western Conference.
2. Cavs Coming Down to Earth
After starting the season 56-10, the Cavs are 6-6 in their last 12 games. It’s no secret why—their red-hot shooting throughout the season has cooled off considerably in the last few weeks. The Cavs have been the best shooting team in the league all season, shooting 49.3% from the field and 38.2% from three which are both second in the league.
In their last 12 games, they are shooting 48.8% from the field which is 10th and just 34.0% from downtown—a miserable 25th and worse than the 76ers who are trotting plumbers out onto the court. They are also shooting 73.4% from the free throw line which is 28th in the NBA. Donovan Mitchell has been ice cold from three, shooting 27.1% in that stretch including a five-game span where he shot 6-for-42. He’s averaging just 18.8 points per game and both he and Darius Garland have shot below 43% from the field.
Cleveland is 9th in defensive rating and 12th in points per game allowed—respectable numbers but not good enough to contend for a championship if their offense isn’t at its peak (they are 8th in offensive rating during this 6-6 stretch). The last time a team won a championship without a top seven offensive or defensive rating was in 2011 when the Mavericks won the title with a 9th-best offensive rating and an 8th-best defensive rating.
We know how good the Cavs can be at their peak, but this version of them is closer to the Knicks and Pacers than the Celtics.
3. Is Houston the Second Best Team in the West?
When Houston lost 11 of 16 games in February, everyone wrote them off. Even now, with a 52-27 record which has them comfortably in second in the brutal Western Conference, the perception surrounding the Rockets is that they are a regular-season team due to their youth and energy and that they are the weakest team in the playoff field outside of Memphis.
But I just watched the Rockets take care of business on the road against Golden State while Amen Thompson smothered Steph Curry, Dillon Brooks shot 10-for-13, Jalen Green made shot after shot in the fourth quarter, and Alperen Sengun got under the skin of Draymond Green. Two nights ago, they dismantled the Thunder who hadn’t lost in 25 days and they’ve now won 15 of their last 17 games.
Similar to the Clippers, the Rockets have proven that they play elite defense but their offense has looked questionable all season shown by their 19th-best offensive rating prior to the 15-2 streak. However, in the 17-game span, they are second in offensive rating and have scored over 140 points four times—something they only did once in their first 62 games. Moreover, Houston is 22-3 when they score 120 points, so if they can get it going on offense, they become a heavy favorite.
While we continue debating between the Warriors, Lakers, and Nuggets as the biggest threat to the Thunder, the correct answer might be hiding in plain sight. After all, Houston has been second in the West for the last two-and-a-half weeks and is one of just two teams to beat the Thunder twice this season.
4. Tyrese Haliburton’s Sensational Efficiency
Haliburton might not be under the media spotlight but he is certainly turning the heads of people like myself who follow the league closely on a night-to-night basis. His Pacers are surging at the moment—they’ve separated themselves from Milwaukee and Detroit as the clear fourth-best team (potentially third) in the East, and they’ve been very efficient on both ends of the floor while doing so.
Since February 23rd (the Pacers’ last 18 games), Haliburton has been on a passing heater. He has 16 double-digit assist games which is the same number as the entire rest of the season. He has racked up 206 assists in those 18 games (11.4 per game) and incredibly, only has 22 turnovers. For perspective, Trae Young has 23 turnovers in his last six games. Thanks to his ultra-efficient stretch, Haliburton now leads the league in assist-to-turnover ratio (5.62) among players with at least 100 minutes played and is third in overall assists.
In Indiana’s last 15 games, they are 12-3 and third in both scoring and field goal percentage. That’s led to the 7th-best offensive rating in the league in that span. However, the real story is their 9th best defense which is much improved from last year and is better than both the Cavaliers and the Celtics.
When Haliburton passes for over ten assists per game, Indiana is 25-7. In the playoffs last season, they were 3-1 when Haliburton went over 10 assists with the lone loss being a heartbreaking overtime choke job to Boston in game one.
5. Denver’s Inconsistencies
While every Western Conference playoff team is in a furious race to the finish line for high seeding, one team doesn’t seem to care about winning. That’s the Nuggets. They have lost four straight and eight out of 12 which has them just just half a game ahead of eighth place in the West.
I’ve been down on Denver all season, even when they were red hot in January and February. That’s because when Jamal Murray isn’t at his best, the Nuggets are so much more reliant on Nikola Jokic than any other team is on their superstar which is not a winning formula.
In Denver’s last four games, Jokic has averaged a mind-boggling 45.0 points, 12.3 rebounds, and 10.7 assists on 62% shooting. But they are 0-4, largely because Murray hasn’t played any of those games. They are just 8-6 without Murray this season and 3-5 since the start of 2025. They are also 15-15 when Murray scores fewer than 20 points. He’ll need to go over that total in the playoffs but will struggle to do so against a field of teams such as Houston, Minnesota, and OKC who are built to combat guards like Murray.
Denver has a poor record of 10-13 against Western Conference playoff teams. Nikola Jokic’s excellence creates the illusion that they are a contender, but I believe their ceiling is the second round.
