Jordan Heinrich ’26
EE Staff Writer
The 2025 NBA Playoffs has been a rollercoaster of surprises, starting with the collapse of the two heavily favored teams in the Boston Celtics and the Cleveland Cavaliers. The Cavs were the favorites to come out of the Eastern Conference holding the top seed with a 64-18 record. In the first round of the playoffs, the Cavaliers swept the Miami Heat in 4 games to advance to the second round against the Indiana Pacers. Disaster struck Cleveland when two of the top players on the Cavs Donovan Mitchell and Evan Mobley got hurt in game 1. The Cavs fell to the Pacers in five games.
The Boston Celtics were the 2024 NBA Champions and once again favored to win it all this year. The Celtics struggled to overcome the New York Knicks blowing multiple large leads in key games. Jason Tatum, Jaylen Brown, and Derrick White all struggled with shooting and could not slow down the Knicks offense. Jason Tatum’s devastating achilles injury further impacted the Celtics in the final two games of the series. The Knicks went on to win the series in six games, advancing to their first Eastern Conference Finals in 25 years.
In the Western Conference there was another huge disappointment in the first round where the Los Angeles Lakers lost in five games against the Minnesota Timberwolves. Despite having no injuries to key players, the Lakers struggled shooting the ball and rebounding to get on the transition. After that series, questions began swirling over the future of Lebron James and Luka Doncic. Lebron, who is 40 years old, still dominates on the court but there is speculation about his retirement. Luka Doncic was acquired from the Dallas Mavericks mid-season and will be a free agent at the end of the playoffs.
The Golden state Warriors and Houston Rocket series showed no surprises that the Warriors won the series in seven games. The Warriors advanced to the second round against the Minnesota Timberwolves but lost in five games. Stephen Curry’s future is also in the air due to the poor season he had this year.
In the Eastern Conference Finals, currently the Knicks are down two games to one in a heartbreaking loss in game one at home in Madison Square Garden. The Knicks are struggling against the Pacers defense and can not get anything started on offense. Sunday, the Knicks came back to win game three on the Pacers home court. In the Knicks favor, they have played incredibly well on the road having a 6-1 record in the playoffs. Time will tell for the Knicks if they are able to come back and defeat the Indiana Pacers.
In the Western Conference Finals there is no dominant team in the series, the Oklahoma City Thunder and Minnesota Timberwolves are equally matched. The series is also at two games to one in favor of the OKC Thunder.
With all of the surprises happening in the playoffs, who will be crowned the next NBA Champion?