These NBA playoff races are rather high stakes

Looking at what's left to be decided with about a dozen games remaining.

Good morning. Let’s basketball.

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The Merry Jesters; Henri Rousseau; 1906

NBA teams have about a dozen games remaining in the regular season. Let’s look at the most important races remaining.

Eastern Conference

The Celtics are the guaranteed No. 1 seed. It’ll be interesting to see how the team plays out the string while riding a 9-game win streak. The Bucks are pretty comfortable in No. 2 with a 3-game lead on the Cavaliers right now.

The Cavaliers, Knicks and Magic are within a single game for the Nos. 3-5 seeds. The Magic will likely have the tiebreakers over both. The Knicks have the tiebreaker over Cleveland. The Cavs have five of their 11 remaining games against non-postseason teams (including three meetings with the Hornets, the first of which is tonight). The Knicks have four of their remaining 12 against non-postseason teams. The Magic have four of 11 against non-postseason teams. What are the stakes in this race? Well, you avoid the other two teams of similar quality and you put off a potential match-up with the Celtics until the East finals. I don’t really think any of these teams feel great about the Bucks, though.

The next three teams clustered are fighting for the No. 6 seed and some play-in/Bucks/Celtics avoidance. This group is 2.5 games minimum behind the Magic, so there’s a chance for some late intermingling. The Pacers are currently No. 6, a half-game up on the Heat and Sixers. Both Miami tiebreakers remain to be decided. Indiana has the tiebreaker over Philadelphia. The Heat have five non-postseason opponents in 11 remaining games. The Pacers have three in 10 games. The Sixers have five in 11. The first week of April could decide all this: Sixers at Heat on April 4, Heat at Pacers on April 7. The stakes here: the top finisher gets a guaranteed ticket to the first round and no Celtics or Bucks once there. The other two teams will need to win one game in two tries to make it. For pure drama, it’d be pretty amazing for the Sixers to sneak up to No. 6 so we can get Celtics-Heat and Bucks-Pacers in the first round.

The Bulls will be the No. 9 seed. The Hawks will be the No. 10 seed. I want to tell myself I won’t watch that play-in game, but who are we kidding here?