Evaluating my 2024 NBA Playoff Rankings

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The thing about sports analysis is that no matter how thorough your research is, it won’t necessarily align with what happens when the games are actually played. This leads to some of the dumbest people in sports media being able to take victory laps while some of the smartest are left to second-guess their entire existence. In reality, this is simply the nature of sports. The unpredictability is a feature, not a bug, and a fantastic one at that. 

Heading into the NBA playoffs, I did an entire episode on my own personal NBA power rankings. These power rankings were meant to gauge each team’s title chances, and I based them on my own proprietary blend of matchups, injuries, how teams looked heading into the postseason, and, most importantly, vibes. As we head into the conference finals, we have more than enough information to look back and evaluate how accurate my power rankings were for the teams who are still alive, so let’s do just that while also recalibrating what to expect from each of them moving forward. 

NBA Playoff Rankings Episode: YouTube | Spotify | Apple Podcasts

Boston Celtics

What I Got Right: Everything. They were the #2 overall team in my OG power rankings and once again one of the final four teams left. I can no longer remember what a conference finals without them felt like, which makes me sad. This wasn’t exactly a bold pick because they’ve been far and away the best team in the league all year, but I even nailed the bad stuff like embarrassing losses thanks to too many missed 3s and disappearing acts from Jayson Tatum. Actually, those weren’t bold predictions either. Sorry. 

What I Got Wrong: I did not foresee their path to the conference finals being this easy. They’ve gotten to face teams who are incredibly shorthanded due to injury. Both Miami and Cleveland could have made things tough for them if they were at full strength, but c’est la vie. 

This isn’t to take anything away from Boston. It’s certainly unfortunate when it happens to stars like Donovan Mitchell and Jimmy Butler, but teams are banged up this time of year. Navigating that, like the Celtics have had to do with Kristaps’ calf issue, is part of winning a title. They also set themselves up for an easier path from the jump by handling business in the regular season. 

Why They’ll Make The Finals: Their opponent, the Indiana Pacers, plays a style of basketball that Boston is very much comfortable playing. The Celtics’ reliance on the 3-pointer still makes me nervous, but Indiana is a team that will allow you to shoot yourself into a rhythm. 

On top of that, Indiana’s star, Tyrese Haliburton hasn’t looked nearly as effective in the postseason. How much of that is injury-related versus the lights being too bright is hard to say, but things aren’t going well when people are comparing you to Fonzworth Bentley. They need him to play up to his In-Season Tournament level if they’re going to pull this off, but he hasn’t looked like that consistently since, well, the In-Season Tournament.

Boston is more talented, more experienced, much better defensively, and should have no trouble beating this team. 

Why They’ll Lose: Boston is more talented, more experienced, much better defensively, and should have no trouble beating this team. 

I mean we’ve seen this before, right? There’s no team who can figure out a way to lose quite like Boston. Just when you think they’re getting over the hump, they faceplant right into it. They’re the NBA’s version of the Donovan McNabb Eagles.

This is a closer matchup than it looks like at first glance. Myles Turner was fantastic against the Knicks and is a younger, better version of Al Horford. Andrew Nembhard may or may not be better than Jrue Holiday, but he’s certainly more consistent. You would probably take Jaylen Brown over Pascal Siakim, but you’d have to think long and hard about it. And each team’s star has consistency issues and has been meme’d to death as a result. 

Their regular season matchups came down to who shot it better from 3. I have no reason to believe this series will be decided by anything different. The Pacers are more than capable of doing that 4 times in a series and causing an avalanche of fake Jayson Tatum dancing videos to hit the timeline. 

Indiana Pacers

What I Got Right: I thought their biggest advantage was how much healthier they were compared to the rest of the teams in the playoffs. The Celtics get a lot of flack for how easy their path has been thanks to their opponents’ bad luck in terms of health, but the Pacers’ opponents very well may have had even worse luck. They got to face a Bucks team without Giannis that was also without Dame for 2 games. After that, they moved on to face the Knicks, whose head coach is almost certainly in the pocket of Big Orthopedics. 

What I Got Wrong: I did not believe their playing style, specifically on defense, would allow them to make it this far in the playoffs. However, they’ve managed to do just enough to win games and their defense is roughly 10 points per game better in the playoffs than it was in the regular season. 

Why They’ll Make The Finals: Again, as I said above, this is a much closer matchup than it appears. The addition of Pascal Siakim wasn’t smooth off the bat, but he’s looked more comfortable as time has gone on. He’s taken over the scoring role as Haliburton deals with whatever it is that he’s dealing with, and has done so relatively efficiently. Then, there’s Myles Turner. He’s has been in trade rumor after trade rumor the past couple of seasons but still shows up focused and ready to hoop. He’s been on fire from 3 in the playoffs, hitting 2.5 per game at a 45.7% clip. 

They also can go 8 deep without a ton of dropoff in production. TJ McConnell looks like a Bill Belichick slot receiver but comes in and runs the offense well and annoys opposing PGs with his defense. There were times in the Knicks series when he was more effective than Haliburton. I still don’t know what to make of Obi Toppin, but he comes in with a ton of energy and instant offense. And Ben Sheppard is a rookie knockdown shooter who plays like he’s been in the league for a decade. 

They have the talent. They have a head coach who has done it before in Rick Carlisle. The Celtics will certainly be open to playing the Pacers’ style. Indiana just needs to string together 4 games where they are hotter than Boston. 

 Why They’ll Lose: Look, I still don’t believe they can get enough stops to win a series in which the other team has all of their talent at their disposal. Nothing they’ve done up to this point has been truly impressive. The Milwaukee series going to 6 games was an embarrassment. They did show more heart than I thought they had winning the last 2 games against the Knicks, including game 7 in Madison Square Garden, but you should probably be able to do that against a team of trauma patients. 

While this is a closer matchup than it appears, the big difference between the two teams is that Boston knows how to lock in defensively. They’ve allowed the second-fewest points per game this postseason. While they did face some anemic offenses, they were also third in defensive rating over the course of the regular season as well. It’s way more likely that the Celtics can disrupt Indiana’s offense than vice versa, particularly when you consider Haliburton’s ups and downs.  

Minnesota Timberwolves

What I Got Right: Okay, I’m going to be honest. Not a lot of bold T’Wolves takes from yours truly heading into the playoffs. I was very high on Anthony Edwards. While the MJ comps are premature, he has been mostly spectacular. I also was a big fan of how they were making defense cool again. Oh, and Naz Reid. But this was the team I was the most wrong about so let’s move on to that. 

What I Got Wrong: Alright, here we go. As someone who loves to hate Rudy Gobert, the time has come for me to apologize. I was one of those people who bought into the narrative that you could play him off the floor defensively, but that’s simply not true. He’s certainly more effective in some spots than others, but there’s very little reason to ever sub him out for his defense. I will continue to make fun of him, but I pledge to do so using only facts from now on. 

I also doubted Karl Anthony-Towns. Now, I was right to do so and had legitimate concerns about how he’d look after coming back from his knee injury, but this man came in and played a crucial role in closing out the defending champs in game 7 on the road. He still picks up some of the dumbest fouls imaginable, but I appreciate how effective he is in his role for this team. He never seems to pout over the dumb fouls or being on the bench for whatever reason. He just sits there then comes back in and hoops. 

I swear I’m almost done, but I also wildly overvalued experience, which is crazy because I never do that in real life. I thought the Suns would beat them easily because they had key pieces who had made deep playoff runs and they dominated Minnesota in the regular season. We saw how much that mattered. Same deal with Denver. I hope we’ve all learned a very important lesson. 

Why They’ll Make The Finals: They defend their asses off. Plain and simple. They had the Suns so frustrated they helped Shams put together a piece on how disgruntled their locker room was as the series was still going on. Then, they had Jamal Murray throwing heating pads and towels on the court. They’ll have their hands full with Kyrie and Luka, but they’re well-equipped to throw multiple bodies at both. And it’s not like Luka is the face of serenity when things aren’t going his way. 

In today’s game, we talk about how teams always have a chance if they can hit 3s. While that is true, it’s also true for teams that can defend the way Minnesota does. We saw it in game 7 against Denver when they staged the largest game 7 comeback in NBA history. That game was over. I was getting ready to get a full 8 hours of sleep. Then, Minnesota just turned the faucet off and started clawing their way back into it. It was an incredible sight. 

With a defense like that, you just need to have enough offense and they do. Edwards is one of the most dangerous 1-on-1 weapons in the league. KAT was incredible from 3 in the regular season and has somehow been even better in the playoffs. Naz Reid is a matchup nightmare off the bench. My old friend Gobert is a lob threat who also provides extra possessions on the offensive glass. This team has enough on both ends of the court to pull it off. 

Why They’ll Lose: We saw what happened when all of a sudden Nikola Jokic remembered he was the best basketball player in the world. Sometimes in basketball, great offense beats great defense. Few can match the individual offensive brilliance of Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving. They’ve made some of the best defenders the NBA has to offer look ridiculous time and time again in the very same way Jokic did Gobert at times last series. Do you believe in Minnesota’s ability to shut them down for 4 games? How many teams have done that this season?

My other concerns are the same narrative-based ones that made me look so very wrong about this team before, but they’re still there. Aren’t we all just waiting for them to turn back into a pumpkin? What’s more wrong: doubting a team that came into the league the same year that I was born and has made just 2 conference finals appearances or the phrase “NBA champion Rudy Gobert?” 

Exactly. Admittedly, the doubts are much quieter as I begin to accept that this could be the most well-rounded team left. But I have to see a little bit more before I start believing. Especially since they still insist on playing Kyle Anderson.

Dallas Mavericks

What I Got Right: I crushed this one. I had them as the 2nd highest-ranked Western Conference team and look at them now! I loved how they played the 2nd half of the season. They were absolutely on fire heading into the postseason. I loved their matchup with the Clippers. I thought their 2-headed post monster of Dereck Lively and Daniel Gafford would present problems for the Thunder. And, most importantly, I thought that Luka and Kyrie had finally figured their pairing out. 

Now, it certainly hasn’t been as easy as I imagined when I was firing off predictions. Luka has been banged up and wasn’t nearly the same player against the Thunder that he was in the regular season. But they battled through it in an effort to prove my expertise. 

What I Got Wrong: I wildly underestimated how big of a factor their role players would play. PJ Washington was the most important player of games 2 and 3 against OKC and his free throws at the end of game 6 capped off a furious rally to win the game and end the series. Derrick Jones Jr. is known as a high-flyer, but he provided timely 3-point shooting while averaging 20.5 points per game in the final 2 games of the series. 

Why They’ll Make The Finals: I’m a firm believer in star power when it comes to winning championships and Luka and Kyrie are the 2 most-trustworthy stars left. Few players in the world can carry a team the way Luka can. We’ve seen him do it with awful teams. Now, he’s got a team full of weapons at his disposal. If he can keep his body together, he’s hard to bet against. 

A huge caveat, but when Kyrie has his head on straight, he’s one of the best #2 options in the NBA. We saw it when he won a title with LeBron and the Cavs. We even saw it in flashes with Brooklyn. He’s been all about basketball all season long for the first time in forever, and it’s shown in his play. The Kyrie-Luka pairing got off to a rough start last season, but there’s been no better duo in the second half of this year.  

Why They’ll Lose: Luka cannot carry them if he’s not at full strength, and he hasn’t appeared to be at full strength for much of the playoffs. This has forced other players to step up, but will they be able to do so against a team that’s as strong defensively as the Timberwolves are? Minnesota has defender after defender to throw at both Luka and Kyrie as well as arguably the best help defender big in the NBA in Rudy Gobert.

Scoring was scarce at times against OKC, and Minnesota is much better equipped to deal with Dallas’ stars than the Thunder were and also has the personnel to handle their role players. How much frustration will Luka be able to endure before reverting back to his hero-ball ways? And how effective will that be with his body as less than 100%? 

So there you have it. Will I be right this time around? Almost certainly. As you can see, I’ve hedged my bets by predicting both outcomes. Unlike two of the teams above, I cannot lose. You can’t lose either. Not only do you have the best basketball analysis right here at your disposal, but you also have the NBA playoffs to watch. With last year’s champs out, we are guaranteed a new champion. A young star will cement his legacy. And, again, most importantly, I will be right.