On Wednesday, we discussed the race to earn a top-six seed (and a guaranteed playoff spot) in the Western Conference. Today, we’re shifting our focus to the East, where the top four teams in the conference have created some breathing room, but the fifth, sixth, and seventh seeds are bunched up.
After Thursday’s games, the 42-31 Bulls still control the No. 5 seed, but their lead over the No. 6 Cavaliers (41-32) and the No. 7 Raptors (also 41-32) is down to a single game, with just nine games left in the season for all three teams.
Both Chicago and Cleveland have been trending in the wrong direction as of late. The Bulls sat atop the East as recently as one month ago, when their record was 39-21. Since then, they’ve won just three of 13 games and their grip on a guaranteed playoff berth is slipping.
Zach LaVine has battled a knee injury for much of the year and DeMar DeRozan now has a left groin strain. According to Tankathon, Chicago also has the NBA’s fifth-hardest schedule for the rest of the season, beginning with a huge matchup against the Cavaliers in Cleveland on Saturday.
The Cavs should welcome the opportunity to pass the Bulls in the standings by winning that game (a victory would give them the tiebreaker edge for now), but they haven’t played their best basketball in recent weeks either. The No. 3 seed in the East as recently as February 17, Cleveland has six wins in its last 17 contests and dropped a crucial game in Toronto on Thursday.
The absence of starting center Jarrett Allen – on top of all the other injuries affecting the Cavs – has hurt. On the plus side, the team’s schedule the rest of the way, which includes a pair of meetings against Orlando, is manageable — it’s only the NBA’s 18th-hardest, per Tankathon.
The Raptors, meanwhile, don’t have the tiebreaker advantage over Chicago or Cleveland, so they’d need to finish at least one game ahead of one of those teams in order to avoid being relegated to a play-in. They look capable of doing that.
Seven of the Raptors’ last nine games will be at home, and they have the league’s sixth-easiest slate, according to Tankathon. Following a 14-17 start to the season, Toronto has gone 27-15 and is close to finally having a fully healthy starting five. Fred VanVleet is banged up and Gary Trent Jr. missed yesterday’s game with a toe injury, but OG Anunoby is back and Trent was listed as questionable earlier in the day on Thursday, an indication that he shouldn’t be out too long.
While it may be too late for them to make up the necessary ground, the No. 8 Nets (38-35) shouldn’t be excluded from the conversation. Buoyed by the NBA’s fourth-easiest schedule and the full-time return of Kyrie Irving, the Nets are in position to finish the season strong. But they’re still three games behind the Cavs and Raptors with just nine left to play (their tiebreakers vs. both teams remain up for grabs).
We want to know what you think. Will the Bulls and Cavaliers hold onto their top-six spots, or will one of them in a play-in game? If the Raptors move into the top six and secure a guaranteed playoff spot, which team will they pass? Do the Nets still have a chance to avoid the play-in?
Head to the comment section below to weigh in with your thoughts on the East’s race for the top six!
7 and 8 seeds are good because they have better coaches than top 6 teams
What if Heat and 76ers are not able to past the first round playoffs？
Sometimes one starter is injured
Nash is a better coach than who? He has Durant and KD not much coaching going on there.
KD and Durant…..
Lol
The Durant and KD thing is an example of his brain getting ahead of his fingers although just Durant got them quite a ways last year. The thing I take issue with is better coaching then the top 6 teams. Nurse is a great coach, Nash is kind of a unknown commodity. There’s a guy in Miami though that goes by the name of Erik Spoelstra that may just be the 2nd best active head coach in the NBA today.
Yea obviously meant Kyrie and Durant.
SillyVan, you are one silly robot.
The Bulls look lost. It seems they counted on Caruso making a huge difference defensively after his return. He has been “not good”. They also aren’t getting enough offensive support from the role players. Derozan has cooled, and the team just doesn’t look like any kind of contender. I would not be surprised if Cleveland or Toronto passed them.
Bulls do not deserve to be in the playoffs with the poor effort they show lately. No motion, little fight on the boards, only Caruso (and occasionally Demar of all people) scrambling for loose balls.
This has to be fixed in the offseason, they cannot shoot their way to a title, they need some defensive identity.
I think that BKN will be #7 which means that #2 will have a much harder than average opening series. Certainly much harder than #3. Will there be a high seed version of tanking to avoid BKN?
They’re 3 games back of the 7th seed with only 10 games left to play. They are pretty much locked into the 8th seed.
I realize now that you’re suggesting they’ll win the 7-8 game, so ignore my comment.
Citing Tankathon is great lol.
The news on Lonzo is pretty bearish for Chicago. But Allen was arguably Cleveland’s best player this year. Toronto, on the other hand, is finally fully healthy and Siakam looks better than ever.
I’d bet on one of Chicago and Cleveland dropping. Probably Cleveland—these closing lineups of LeVert-Darius-Mobley-Lauri-Okoro just seem …. like a team that should probably be playing in a play-in
As long as Garland is going
This middling stuff could be hurtful in the end, since they lose their first if it’s out of the lottery.
Onward and upward!
I’ve been bullish on both CHI (due to their FO chief) and CLE (due to the duo of Allen and Mobley) since the start of the year, but some regression was inevitable in each case. Teams just don’t go from being perennial bottom 5 to top 5 that seamlessly. If the season had another 25 games, I wouldn’t see either staying a top 6 team. But with 10 or so remaining, many against tanking teams, they certainly can hold on. CHI has a lot of playmakers and just needs one or more to get hot. CLE just has to get Allen-Mobley back together and dominating on the defensive end.
You were bullish on the Knicks too. I remember you saying the Knicks were a 4 seed and the Celtics a 6-8 seed. Yes, I remember that for sure.
They just need to start winning some games. Then we will see their record improve.
LOL, nope. I never said that (#4), and, in fact, I said, many times, that there would likely be some regression for the Knicks year over year. Anyway, your mental faculties are obviously limited, so what you think you “remember” – “for sure” or not – isn’t informative.
MIA is gonna have to lose a few games to try avoiding BRK, right?
I mean, seriously, if MIA gets BRK in R1EC they are out, I can’t see a world in which MIA can beat them, right now all teams must be desperate to avoid the #1-2 in the EC, much better to end #3-4, at least you avoid the embarrassment & failure to be a one & done team as a top seed!
Brooklyn can be defeated. MIA has the best matchups for a playoff series, as defense is key to sending Brooklyn home.
However, that would be the most interesting series in the East. Bulls are going to hang on to the 5th seed, but 4 is getting out of reach. Either way, I wouldn’t count them out against Boston, they match up well.
However, it is highly unlikely the Bulls will advance much further. Their shooting has been atrocious and mental lapses abound. Playoff intensity will be good experience for the youngsters, but I think they need to start planning for how to upgrade on Vucevich, he is a vet but still making a lot of those lapses. Has had the ball stolen from him under the basket (even one on an inbounds play!) multiple times. He is a big who plays soft, and is constantly heaving up 3s, even when his shot isn’t falling. He needs to stay in the paint in the Bulls’ system, but he keeps ‘forgetting’ where success comes from. He wants to be a first option, but on this team he is at best #3, with Coby White close on his heels.
I think the Bulls offense runs better with Tristan Thompson as he sticks to tip ins and offensive rebounds, another area where Nikola gets outpositioned.
Nice guy, but he seems to not get his role.