Brice Cherry: Fear not, casual NBA fans, here's all you need to know for the playoffs (2024)

There are two types of NBA fans. The first genuinely cares about the start of the season and keeps up with what’s happening around the league throughout the year. The second checks in right now, just in time for the playoffs.

If you’re the latter, welcome aboard. Find a seat, make yourself comfortable, we’ve got plenty of room on the bus. Don’t worry if you’re a little confused about what’s going on, I’m here to navigate where we’re headed. For I am that rare third type of NBA fan — yes, I know I stated that there were only two — the one who can’t get enough of it all, the one who watches mid-October regular-season games even during (gasp!) the thick of football season. (Look, I’ve lived with this disease since the 1980s, it’s not being cured anytime soon.)

Allow me to anticipate some of the questions you might have, and do my best to answer them.

Which lower seeds can make a run?

Naturally, the NBA playoffs aren’t March Madness. College basketball’s single-elimination tournament lends itself to more upsets than its pro counterpart. (Both are equally beautiful in my eyes.)

But upsets still happen, based on the seed line. Look no further than last season, when the seventh-seeded Miami Heat started percolating at the ideal time, going from the Play-In Tournament all the way to the Finals.

Let’s start with the No. 6 seeds in both conferences. In the East, that’s the Indiana Pacers, who will go up against the third-seeded Milwaukee Bucks in the first round. The Bucks won only two more games than Indiana in the regular season, so there’s really not as vast a gap as the seeds might imply.

Tyrese Haliburton has emerged as arguably the best young point guard in the league, and averaged 20.3 points and 10.9 assists on the year. He also made 195 3-pointers with one of the most unorthodox jump shots in the league, a rainbow push shot that is part Purvis Short, part Shawn Marion.

The Bucks, NBA champs as recently as 2021, have been a mess all year. The Giannis Antetokounmpo-Damian Lillard tag team hasn’t meshed as well as expected. The Bucks displayed a deer-in-the-headlights look defensively most of the year, and though they’ve improved in that area since Doc Rivers took over as coach in January, they’re still only 17-19 under Doc. One other rather large hitch in their giddy-up is that Giannis has been listed as questionable for the series with an injured calf.

The Pacers won four of five games from Milwaukee this season, and those wins all came before their big trade acquisition of Pascal Siakam. They’re dangerous, and the Bucks are vulnerable almost to the point of being venison.

In the West, the sixth-seeded Suns failed to put together a great regular season, at least relative to expectation. When you’ve got a Big 3 of Kevin Durant, Devin Booker and Bradley Beal, one wouldn’t imagine the Suns being eclipsed as often as they were. Booker and Beal dealt with injuries, and that may have played a part, but it was easy to watch Phoenix’s games and leave wanting a little more.

And yet it’s still a team nobody wants to play, least of all the Timberwolves, who went 0-3 against Phoenix in the regular season. Minnesota turned in a surprisingly splendid regular season, in contention for the No. 1 seed in the West right up until the end. The Wolves sink their claws into teams defensively, anchored by Rudy Gobert’s rim protection. And Karl-Anthony Towns is back on the court after missing 18 games with a knee injury late in the season.

But Durant is a walking mismatch, just as he’s been his whole career. Too long for smaller defenders and too crafty with his handles for bigs, he’s likely to make life hell for KAT.

Who is most likely to take over a series?

There are several right answers to this question, including all of the league’s MVP candidates. But perhaps the most correct answer in 2024 is a guy who I would put No. 3 on my MVP ballot, and that’s Luka Doncic.

The Mavs’ 25-year-old superstar turned in the most dynamic season of his still-developing Hall of Fame career. He averaged a league-high 33.9 points to go with 9.2 rebounds, 9.8 assists and 1.4 steals per game, stuffing box scores on a nightly basis. It’s fitting he’s a Maverick, because sometimes it feels like Luka is just playing H-O-R-S-E out there, banking in off-balance 3s and flicking up finger rolls from the perimeter.

Now, he’s often as bad defensively as he is otherworldly offensively, and he undoubtedly led the league in gripes at the officials. (I’m becoming convinced he may be the second coming of Bill Laimbeer.) And as I said, he’d be my third choice for MVP behind Denver’s Nikola Jokic and OKC’s Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, both of whom lead better teams.

The Mavs-Clippers series might be the most intriguing of all the first-round matchups, especially if a resurgent (read: finally healthy) Kawhi Leonard takes on the defensive challenge of guarding Luka. But if anyone in the playoffs is going to piggy-back his team to the next round by himself, it’s definitely Doncic, who shoots like Bird, passes like LeBron and handles like Harden.

Which teams will surprise me?

Stop the presses, because the Knicks are legit. (Yes, we still have access to a printing press).

Behind a brilliant all-around season from Jalen Brunson, New York climbed all the way to the No. 2 seed in the East. Brunson, who averaged 28.7 points per game, may be the most unique scorer in the game. He’s only 6-2, but is craftier than Martha Stewart and is extremely efficient at getting to his spots.

The Knicks rank sixth in the league in defensive efficiency, and they’ve assembled enough quality depth that they were able to withstand a sending-ending shoulder injury to former All-Star Julius Randle with little slowdown.

On paper, it might look like the Knicks drew a tough first-round foe in the 76ers, given that 2023 league MVP Joel Embiid is back on the court again. But I’m skeptical that Philly can just flip the switch and turn it on that quickly. These Knicks are NYC’s best hope of reaching the Finals for the first time since the lockout season of 1999.

Casual NBA fans might need six or seven guesses before they could come up with the No. 1 seed in the West. It’s the Oklahoma City Thunder, the league’s “oops” babies, because nobody really saw them coming.

OKC boasts a top five offense and top five defense, despite one of the youngest rosters in the league. (Their starting five’s average age is 22.6, barely older than the 2023-24 North Carolina Tar Heels at 22.2).

Gilgeous-Alexander, aka SGA, is the league’s most unheralded superstar. He averaged 30.3 points per game despite making just over one 3-pointer per game on average. SGA does his damage in the mid-range and by drawing fouls, as he ranked second in the NBA in free throw attempts behind Giannis. The 25-year-old Thunder swingman also finished second in the league in steals at 2.0 per game.

The Thunder’s youth and inexperience will probably catch up to them eventually, but they didn’t win 57 games on accident, either.

So, who’s going to win it all?

Give me Celtics over Nuggets in 6 for the Finals.

Denver is the reigning champ, and only gained momentum as the season progressed. Since a three-game losing streak in mid-February, the Nuggets are 21-6. They actually tied OKC for the best record in the West, but dropped to the No. 2 seed based on the head-to-head tiebreaker.

Jokic is a unique, historic talent, the first “point center” in NBA history. Jamal Murray, the Riddler to Denver’s Joker, must stay healthy if the Nuggets are going to make a serious repeat bid. At their mountainous peak, they’re the best in the West, for sure.

However, Boston has the best all-around team in the NBA. The Celtics lead the league in defensive efficiency, 3-pointers, defensive rebounding, shotblocking and turnover rate. Even before this season, Boston delivered a better wing combo than Wing Stop’s lemon pepper and fries. Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown can both take over a game on either end of the court.

Then the Celtics went out and added the original Unicorn, Kristaps Porzingis, and a championship-tested point guard Jrue Holiday in the offseason, only fortifying their stacked lineup. The only knock on Zinger in his career has been his injury-prone nature, but he seems good to go for the postseason.

There have been doubts over whether Boston’s Joe Mazzulla is a championship-level coach. But the 35-year-old Mazzulla (one of five NBA head coaches younger than LeBron James) could silence the skeptics if he is able to lead the Celtics to their record 18th title. That’s my pick, anyway.

OK, that’s enough questions. Let’s get to the real answers. Bring on the two-week chess matches between two evenly matched opponents, bring on the clutch series-clinching shots, bring on the color-coordinated fans in their matching giveaway T-shirts. It’s playoff time.

Glory, glory, hallelujah.