New blood has been the theme of the NBA playoffs. There will be fresh faces in the NBA Finals but how can each team win the conference finals to get there?
We are living in an age of NBA parity.
Since Kevin Durant left the Golden State Warriors, there’s been a bit of a power vacuum in the league. Yes, the Warriors won again in 2022, but it’s hard to call that part of the dynasty when the team has won two playoff series combined in the other five seasons of post-KD.
It was a great run by a team with championship experience, but not something that felt sustainable moving forward. The 2021-22 Warriors were worthy champions, but not one that felt inevitable. Nor have the Warriors followed that up with continued success.
For the first time ever, this postseason will end with a seventh straight different champion. This has already been decided because none of the past six champions even made the conference finals.
A lot has been made about the four conference finalists being three teams that have never won a title – the Oklahoma City Thunder, Minnesota Timberwolves and Indiana Pacers – and a team with a championship drought of over 50 years – the New York Knicks – but the lack of success goes further than that.
These teams have combined for one NBA Finals appearance since 2001. That was by the 2011-12 OKC Thunder, a team that most thought would be back in the finals regularly with their talented young core. But the Thunder never made it back, and that should serve as a warning to the final four teams this year. Future success is never guaranteed; the best chance for any of these teams to take home a long-awaited championship might be this season.
Each team left knows this and has walked the line brilliantly between urgency and desperation in the 2025 playoffs. They are four distinct and entertaining teams, so these series are likely to be decided by which ones use their unique brands of basketball to expose their opponents’ weaknesses the best.
Eastern Conference
No. 3 New York Knicks vs. No. 4 Indiana Pacers
Regular-Season Record: Knicks 51-31/Pacers 50-32 Regular-Season Series: Knicks 2-1 Offensive TRACR: Knicks No. 5/Pacers No. 6 Defensive TRACR: Knicks No. 12/Pacers No. 11 Overall TRACR Rank: Knicks No. 7/Pacers No. 10 Projected Winner (Win Probability): Knicks 54.5%The Pacers and Knicks each beat a heavily favored team in convincing fashion to advance to the Eastern Conference finals, but the similarities don’t stop there.
Each team has an elite point guard who levels up in the clutch and is surrounded by a supporting cast of players not afraid to shoot in the big moment. They have a floor-spacing big man who can create matchup problems for opponents. They have a defense that is strong due to a lack of weaknesses.
Clutch is defined as possessions in the last five minutes of a game or overtime with a score differential of five points or lessThe Knicks will win if … Karl-Anthony Towns is in the spotlight for the right reasons.
This is the second straight year these two teams have met in the playoffs and there are lessons to be learned from last year’s series, which the Pacers won in seven games.
Brunson had sensational moments for the Knicks, but was asked to shoulder far too much of the offensive burden. He took 40 more shots than anyone else on either team in the series and averaged 29.7 points on 23.6 shots per game. He seemed worn down in Game 7, when he scored 17 points on 17 shots.
A lot of this was due to the copious amount of Knicks’ injuries. Forward Julius Randle and guard Bojan Bogdanovic both missed the series, center Mitchell Robinson played one game, small forward OG Anunoby played three, and Brunson himself had to try to shake off a foot injury.
The Knicks are healthy now and the roster is revamped. Shooting guard Donte DiVincenzo, who had 39 points in Game 7 last year, and Randle are no longer on the team, and small forward Mikal Bridges and power forward Karl-Anthony Towns have taken their places.
Bridges is an upgrade over DiVincenzo because of his ability as a secondary playmaker, but his shooting downturn this season has continued in the playoffs and is something to monitor. The Pacers will try to make Bridges beat them from the outside consistently.
But the swing player for the Knicks has to be Towns. The 7-footer has had a checkered past in the playoffs with questionable decisions in big moments causing some of the lowlights.
He’s been mostly good offensively this postseason, with the exception of shooting it very poorly on 3-pointers in the Eastern Conference semifinal-round series win over the Boston Celtics (15.8%). But he made up for it by being efficient within the arc. Turnovers have plagued him in past postseasons, but he’s averaging just 2.0 per game, which is down from the regular season.
That doesn’t mean some of his old ghosts haven’t shown up these playoffs. Foul trouble finds Towns like puzzling cases found Jessica Fletcher in “Murder She Wrote.” Towns has fouled out of four playoff games since 2022, second in the league only to Golden State’s Draymond Green.
The bad fouls haven’t stopped this year. Towns has committed four or more fouls in 11 consecutive games, one behind Dwight Howard (2009 Orlando Magic) for the most in a single postseason since the 2000-2001 season.
* denotes active streakThe Pacers don’t get to the line a lot, so perhaps Towns will be able to avoid fouling on shots. But a lot of fouls have come from undisciplined reaches and on the offensive end.
The Pacers won’t switch smalls onto Towns all the time, but when they do, they’ll try to bait him into swinging his elbow or lowering his shoulder. He has to find a way to stay on the court or Brunson might be asked once again to do too much against a team that doesn’t have many weak individual defenders for him to prod.
The Pacers will win if … the drive-and-kick game is still there.
Tyrese Haliburton scored efficiently in last season’s series win against the Knicks, but his dribble penetration was the biggest factor when the Pacers offense was successful.
It wasn’t just Haliburton, either. T.J. McConnell, their other point guard, had a big series getting into the lane. The pair combined to average 13.0 assists with only 3.1 turnovers per game. The Pacers got into the lane early in the shot clock and made the Knicks chase the ball around the perimeter for entire possessions.
It might not be as easy this time around. Brunson has played better defense this postseason and a healthy Anunoby will make a massive difference in preventing dribble penetration. Bridges was a bit overrated when he was considered an all-world defender, but he’s above average.
Towns is the obvious player to go after on the perimeter, and the Pacers figure to have some success there. He was better than advertised during the Celtics’ series, but when his opponents had him on an island, they could still beat him to the lane.
The Pacers are one of the more selfless teams in the NBA and they have capable shooters all over the floor. If they can get easy advantages early in the clock by breaking down defenders off the dribble, their offense will have a lot of success.
Western Conference
No. 1 Oklahoma City Thunder vs. No. 6 Minnesota Timberwolves
Regular-Season Record: Thunder 68-14/Timberwolves 49-33 Regular-Season Series: Tied 2-2 Offensive TRACR: Thunder No. 3/Timberwolves No. 8 Defensive TRACR: Thunder No. 1/Timberwolves No. 5 Overall TRACR Rank: Thunder No. 1/Timberwolves No. 4 Projected Winner (Win Probability): Thunder 83.2%The Thunder are the only team in the conference finals that most people expected to be here. But they were pushed to the brink by the Denver Nuggets before an exemplary Game 7 performance finally got them to the Western Conference finals.
The Timberwolves have had some poor shooting games this postseason, but they took down NBA royalty to get here, beating LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers in the first round and the Golden State Warriors (who were missing Stephen Curry for most of the series) in the second round.
TRACR projects the Thunder as heavy favorites again, but the Timberwolves are in the conference finals for the second straight year for a reason.
The Thunder will win if … they stick to the script.
While the Timberwolves are a great team and a deserving conference finalist, the Thunder match up to them pretty well on paper.
There aren’t many teams with multiple defenders who have the physicality and lateral quickness to defend Minnesota shooting guard Anthony Edwards, but the Thunder have waves to make life difficult on him. Alex Caruso is one of the only people on the planet who has a shot at guarding both members of an Edwards-Julius Randle pick-and-roll in an isolation situation and succeeding.
Edwards is a brilliant player, but he turned the ball over fifth-most times of any player this season. The Thunder thrive on turnovers and should be able to supercharge their offense if they can get Edwards to cough it up.
One of the Timberwolves’ defensive strengths is not fouling, but the Thunder don’t rely on free throws. They shot the fifth-fewest free throws in the NBA this season, but still managed to have a top-five offense.
After a series-long slump against the Nugget, small forward Jalen Williams found himself again in Game 7, and a reignited Williams would make the Thunder offense lethal. As long as the Thunder play to their potential, they’re in good shape this series.
The Timberwolves will win if … the math becomes too much for the Thunder.
The Thunder have succeeded on offense without free throws in large part due to their superb 3-point shooting. During the regular season, they made the sixth-most 3s per game as a team (14.5) and made the sixth-highest percentage of them (37.4%).
One of the teams that made more 3s per game (15.0) and (37.7%)? The Timberwolves.
The Thunder have also struggled shooting 3s in the playoffs (12.5 per game on 31.9% shooting). It was a huge reason they couldn’t shake the Nuggets earlier in the series.
So the Timberwolves could see themselves with an advantage at the 3-point line if the Thunder keep shooting poorly. The Thunder will likely generate some turnovers, but if Edwards can handle their aggressive style, he could find himself at the free throw line a lot.
The Thunder defense was the best in the NBA regular season by far, but one area of weakness was offensive rebounding. They allowed the second-most offensive rebounds per game among playoff teams, with only the Nuggets allowing more.
The Timberwolves were average at both grabbing and preventing offensive rebounds, but the Thunder were below average in both categories in the regular season. The Thunder did grab a lot of key offensive rebounds against the Nuggets, but that was a weakness for the Nuggets all season. If the Timberwolves emphasize rebounding, they should have the athletes and size to keep the Thunder from making that an advantage for them in this series.
If the Timberwolves make more 3-pointers in this series, shoot more free throws and grab more offensive rebounds, that’s a lot of extra points. They can survive during stretches when they’re outplayed with extra possessions and 3s, and hope Edwards and Randle can explode often enough to give them wins.
The Thunder have been the best team in the league this season, but the Nuggets series showed they aren’t invincible. There are still areas for the Timberwolves to attack, and they’ll have to do so with precision to knock off a team as talented as the one they’re facing.
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