Playoff Projections
The Cade Cunningham news tossed an already murky East playoff picture into further uncertainty. Let's assess where things stand.
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Playoff Projections
We’re in the home stretch.
By the end of the weekend, every team in the NBA will have played at least 70 games. Several teams, including the Knicks, will have only 10 games remaining on their schedule. It’s late enough that we can start looking forward to playoff positioning, seeding and potential matchups.
Last week, I took an extended look at the Detroit Pistons and how unprecedented it would be for a team in their position to make the conference finals. That climb became even steeper yesterday when it was announced that Cade Cunningham was diagnosed with a collapsed lung which will cause him to miss an extended period of time.
It’s entirely possible that Cunningham will be back before the start of the playoffs, but its also possible he misses the first round entirely. His full recovery is obviously the top concern for every NBA fan, but its also hard not to think about how this might impact the road the Finals in the Eastern Conference.
Looking at the Pistons’ schedule, assuming Cade is done for the remainder of the regular season, things will obviously become more challenging. Detroit only has two games remaining against organizations actively trying to lose games, with two of their final three coming against the Bucks and Pacers. They also have a game against the suddenly frisky Pelicans on the second night of a back to back next week. Everything else is against a team jockeying for playoff position.
That doesn’t mean we should automatically drop them in the standings though. Detroit has been an incredibly resilient bunch this year, and went into last night with a 5-2 record in games Cade has sat. Other than Cunningham, Isaiah Stewart is the only other rotation player currently injured, and he may be back next week. Assuming they take care of business against the tanking teams, just a handful of wins in their other games would secure a higher finish than New York (and - spoiler alert - the Knicks aren’t going undefeated from here on in).
Finishing ahead of Boston will be slightly harder, but not by much. The Celtics have games remaining against the Thunder, Knicks, Magic, Heat, Raptors, Wolves (without Ant) and then two apiece against the teams with the best net ratings in the East since the All-Star break, Atlanta and Charlotte. Detroit is four up on Boston in the loss column and in possession of the tiebreaker. I don’t envision a scenario where they swap places.
That means that unless the Cavs (6-6 in their last 12) pass the Knicks, we’re still on course for a Knicks vs Celtics matchup in round two.
Assuming, of course, that both teams make it that far, which is where we’ll go right now.
