It's hard to believe, but the 2018-19 NBA season is nearly coming to a close. There's just over a month left for teams to make a late playoff push or climb up the standings to secure a better seed. As the league prepares for the stretch run, SportsLine data scientist Stephen Oh has run the simulations and crunched the data to see where every team will end up when it's all said and done.
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Here's a look at the odds for every team to make the playoffs, win their conference and win the title.
Western Conference
A few takeaways from these projections:
It's looking more and more likely that the Warriors are going to roll to a third straight title. Whatever struggles they had at the beginning of the season are well in the past, they're healthy and they have more talent than anyone else in the league. SportsLine's data is so confident that it gives the Warriors a 77.4 percent chance to win the title, which is just an outrageous number. The Nuggets are still holding on to the No. 2 seed in the West, but the simulations don't have much faith in their playoff chances. They have just a 1.37 percent chance to win the West, which is sixth-best behind the Warriors, Trail Blazers, Rockets, Jazz and Thunder.LeBron James and the Lakers' chances of making the playoffs are pretty slim. Four and a half games out of the eighth seed with less than 20 games to play would tell you that, and so too would the SportsLine simulations, which give them just a 7.2 percent chance of going to the postseason. The Jazz are surging. Winners of five in a row, they're up to sixth place in the West, and the simulations expect them to finish fifth. More than that, they have the fourth-best chance of winning the West, as slim of a chance as that may be. Still, it's an impressive turnaround from a team that started quite poorly this season.Eastern Conference
A few takeaways from these projections:
The Bucks have established themselves as the best team in the East, and the SportsLine simulations finally believe in them. Heading into the last month-plus of the regular season, the data gives the Bucks a massive 42.7 percent chance to win the East and get to the Finals for the first time since 1974.Victor Oladipo, unfortunately, suffered a season-ending knee injury, but the SportsLine data still gives the Pacers some hope in the playoffs. They've managed to hold on to the No. 3 seed thus far, and the simulations give them a better than 12 percent chance to win the conference. The Celtics have taken a sharp downturn since the All-Star break, and it's little surprise that with their pitiful play lately, the SportsLine data no longer believes in them. Once among the favorites in the East, the Celtics now have just a 7.54 percent chance to go to the Finals -- barely higher than the Pistons' 5.46 percent chance. After a dominant run in the middle of the season, the Nets' magic is starting to fade away. Though they still hold the seventh spot in the East, they've lost three games in a row, and the likes of the Magic, Heat and Hornets are right on their tail. And the SportsLine data does not believe in the Nets to hold those teams off. The simulations have them finishing in ninth, with a 33.5 percent chance of making the postseason.
