2025 NBA Playoffs

It’s that time of the year again I start an NBA Playoffs thread because no one else cares enough to .


Predictions?


West is very competitive this year.


I do sports betting a few times a year and usually only when NBA Playoffs roll around. I hardly watch regular season basketball. I’ve placed a bet on Clippers vs Celtics in the finals +3500, so I’m definitely rooting for the Clippers to come out of the West. I can’t see anyone in the East beating the Celtics.

 

Here are my predictions for the West. The East isn’t too interesting to me.


Lakers > Wolves

Warriors > Rockets


Thunder > Grizzlies

Clippers > Nuggets


Round 2:

Lakers > Warriors (I’m 50/50 on this)

Clippers > Thunder



Round 3:

Clippers > Lakers

 

Insanity.

 

I don't follow the NBA as much as I used to for mainly two reasons:
1) I can't keep track of who plays for who, and
2) I feel the Refs control the outcome of many games, call fouls nobody else can see (even on replay).

I can't devote my time 'really getting into' a game when the Refs control the last two minutes.

And of course, you make disagree - that's fine.

 

Wasn't it 'Lin-sanity'?

Jeremy Lin?

That's about the last time I really watched the NBA, circa 2011 or so.

 

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If your fingers/hands are inside the cylinder, it's goal-tending.
Unless they say it isn't...

See 2) in my post #7 above...

 

Started watching a little of the Knicks series. Haven’t watched much NBA in quite a while.

This doesn’t really look like basketball. I don’t know exactly what it is, but it’s not basketball.

 

My son and I decided that it looks like bad youth CYO basketball with really really great shooting.

 

Well, I don’t know good basketball, that’s for sure. Especially since I’m only catching Knicks games.

Are the other folks playing actual basketball? You know, with dribbling and everything?

 

He may be referring to the same things I do:
They don't dribble anymore, they palm the ball, carry the ball, take 3-4 steps with the ball,
DEPEND on the 3-pt shot, you can't breathe on a guy without getting a foul called, if a shooter
leans his whole body purposely into you while 'shooting' you draw a foul - you can't play defense.

And true to form, my content about refs controlling the outcome of games -

https://www.nbcnews.com/sports/nba/foul-gone-knicks-end-playoff-win-vs-pistons-nba-rcna203226

Foul should have gone against Knicks toward end of playoff win vs. Pistons, NBA says
Had the foul been called, Detroit's Tim Hardaway would have been awarded three free throws with about 0.3 seconds left in the game,
which ended with a one-point New York win.




And I did flip between the games today and the Talladega race - something is always on specifically for background noise here.

 

Yes, but it’s hard to complain about the non-call on that last play in the context of the other 40 fouls that aren’t called during the other 47:59.7 of the game.

 

You and I know that, in EVERY sport, but that's not how people think.

Like a 500 mile car race, you only need to watch the last 5 laps....

 

I've been saying that about him for the last 3 years.
Heard another stat last night - he's had TWO 'dunks' in the last two years...
Prior to that he had like 50+.

What I don't understand is how so many other teams can afford several highly paid
players and build a good team, and the Lakers can't.
LeBron is #14 on the list, Doncic #18

I said back when Mark Williams failed his physical the Lakers were done,
because they don't have a presence in the paint, no defensive body.
They should only go after two players in the draft - a THUG that can play
Center (like a Draymond Green) and a PG that can actually shoot 3's.
Anyone else that can get as a FA.

My true feeling is: Doncic doesn't LOVE playing basketball, he's just there for the ride.
Kinda like Trevor Lawrence or Kyler Murray at QB in the NFL.
If you don't eat, sleep and drink your sport, you will never be great at it.

 

I'm not a big NBA fan, and surely not a Draymond Green fan, but he got screwed on his 6th foul...
(yeah, I know, he never should have gotten into the position of having only one foul left)

 

Why do the Celtics not realize that NBA games go for 48 minutes? That's 3 times they've run out of gas against the supposedly inferior Knicks. (And the one game they did win they blew the Knicks out of the building!)

 

Maybe they believe their own press clippings that keep saying they are the better team????

I want to see a playoff series where the 3-pt line is totally eliminated,
where you have to win by having basketball skills and not just salvo
3-pt shots repeatedly.

I am not really impressed by any team in the playoffs this season.