Where the Eastern Conference NBA playoff field stands: Odds, rankings, what to like and what to worry about (2024)

The 2021 NBA playoffs start this weekend, and all 16 teams headed into the madness have things to like, things to concern you and some good overall feelings with their approach or inclusion in the postseason. Some teams come in as underdogs. Some come in as title contenders. Some teams are just happy to be here. And there are always strengths to lean on and weaknesses to exploit.

The chess match of the postseason is something that creates legends and scapegoats. It can make careers or get you fired. In the Eastern Conference, the returning East champion Miami Heat aren’t among the favorites. The Brooklyn Nets are the talk of the East, and the Philadelphia 76ers and Milwaukee Bucks are hoping to end that conversation. And for the first time in a long time, we have a New York Knicks appearance, and it matters.

Let’s just get down to the East playoff teams for 2021 and see where everybody stands in their long-term odds and in their first-round matchup. You can find the Western Conference playoff field here.

8-seed Washington Wizards | 34-38 | -1.6 net rating | 17th offense | 20th (t) defense

BetMGM.com odds: +8000 to win East | +650 to win first round

Thing to like: There is some pretty good star power for the Washington Wizards in their backcourt. It looks a lot better when Bradley Beal has a healthy hamstring because we’ve seen him light up this great Philadelphia defense before. If you can add what Russell Westbrook has been for the last couple of months without taking away from a healthy Beal’s production, now the Sixers would really have to worry about exhausting their perimeter defense to stop a potent enough Wizards offense. They can do it with Matisse Thybulle and Ben Simmons, but if you get them in foul trouble, the Sixers start having to rethink their rotations dramatically.

Thing to be concerned about: The Wizards don’t really have the size to contend with Philadelphia. Who is guarding Simmons? Who is guarding Tobias Harris? If Robin Lopez gets into foul trouble, who are you putting on Joel Embiid? Even if he doesn’t get into the foul trouble, Embiid is too much for these guys time and time again down the floor. The Wizards already struggle enough on defense, and when they gamble, and it doesn’t go well for creating a turnover, they don’t have the recovery to survive. The Sixers will hunt Davis Bertans out on defense until he starts paying some of that money back to Ted Leonsis as an apology.

General outlook and expectations: If we get the Sixers team we’ve seen all season, this should be quick work. The Wizards provide a much spicier candidate than the Pacers would have, just because of Westbrook’s history with Embiid. Also, don’t forget when the Wizards play-by-play announcer called Simmons the most overrated player in the league as a way to compliment his teammate Harris.

Also read: Despite 17-32 start, Russell Westbrook and Washington Wizards are going to playoffs

7-seed Boston Celtics | 36-36 | +1.2 net rating | 10th offense | 13th defense

BetMGM.com odds: +3500 to win the East | +700 to win first round

Thing to like: Jayson Tatum is cooking everybody right now. Over Tatum’s last 19 games, we saw some ridiculous performances out of the Boston Celtics star. During this stretch of games, he’s averaged 30.9 points, made roughly 48 percent of his shots, roughly 41 percent of his 3-pointers, and he’s had a 53-point game, a 60-point game and a 50-point Play-In Tournament game. Tatum has been rising to the occasion for the Celtics, when they’ve needed him the most. This has not been the same Celtics team we’ve seen the past few years. They’re far more vulnerable, they’re not that deep, and they just lost Jaylen Brown for months due to a wrist injury. But what do they still have? Tatum to be a superhero.

Tatum continues to put himself in great scoring positions, and he’s doing a great job of getting to the free-throw line a ton. Most nights, I’m not sure he even sees the defenders in front of him. He’s hunting out switches and punishing them almost every time. Tatum is on a crazy run right now, and he’s had a great individual season. The Celtics can count on him to bring it. Can they count on anybody to help him?

Thing to be concerned about: The depth and defense are issues. The bench of the Celtics might look good in a couple of years, but it’s young and inconsistent at the moment. Buying stock in its future could be a smart investment, but it won’t get you paid right now. I think that’s a big reason the defense has been so inconsistent for most of the season. By the end of the year, they had a respectable defensive rating, but they still didn’t ever look reliable on defense. That’s the problem with having so much youth and inexperience on a roster. Young guys generally don’t defend well individually or as a group.

The Celtics are asking a lot of their young guys off the bench. If they can just be a net neutral most nights, you’ll consider that a win. They’ve been brutal in trying to defend the 3-point line, and that’s a lot of poor rotations and late closeouts. If the Celtics are going to upset anybody, it’s going to likely have to come from an offensive barrage. Asking these young guys to keep up with Brooklyn’s offense might be rude.

General outlook and expectations: Boston doesn’t really have any expectations heading into this matchup with Brooklyn, and that’s probably a good thing. The Celtics can play looser than we saw a year ago. They can play looser than we saw a month ago, even. Everybody is expecting the Celtics to get worked, so they can approach this with very little pressure and just try to execute and match the energy of the Nets. Maybe even catch the sleeping a time or two to make it interesting.

Also read: How does Boston match up with Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving?

6-seed Miami Heat | 40-32 | -0.1 net rating | 18th offense | 9th (t) defense

BetMGM.com odds: +1400 to win the East | +225 to win first round

Thing to like: The presence of Jimmy Butler. It’s kind of crazy how severe the difference is with and without Butler on the floor for the Miami Heat. There’s roughly an 11-point swing per 100 possessions in the Heat’s favor when Butler is on the floor versus off it. The Heat have struggled to defend all season long without Butler, but they’ve also had massive swings in quality of players on the floor when Butler isn’t out there. His presence on the floor is a reminder of what we saw last season, especially in the bubble for the Heat.

We also haven’t seen Butler against the best competition in the East this season.

Heat vs. East's Top 3 Seeds

PHI 1/12: Jimmy Butler DNP
PHI 1/14: Jimmy Butler DNP
PHI 5/13: Jimmy Butler played, won

BK 1/23: Jimmy Butler DNP
BK 1/25: Jimmy Butler DNP
BK 4/18: Jimmy Butler DNP

MIL 12/29: Jimmy Butler DNP
MIL 12/30: Jimmy Butler DNP
MIL 5/15: Jimmy Butler DNP pic.twitter.com/wljz2WNNmC

— Tom Haberstroh (@tomhaberstroh) May 18, 2021

Nine games against the top three seeds. Butler played in zero of them. Some of that was coincidental, but at a certain point, you have to wonder if the Heat kept him out at the end against the Bucks just to not show their cards. That’s a very Erik Spoelstra-type of move to make. He hates showing his hand prior to the postseason, and the Heat didn’t even tear open the cellophane on the box of cards.

Butler is going to have a massive effect on this first series against Milwaukee. They’re going to need him to do everything and do it against one of the best teams on both ends of the floor. You’d like the Heat to be healthier than they are, but Butler claims to just get them to the postseason, and he’ll do the rest. Well, here we are.

Thing to be concerned about: Where did this team’s shooting go? Last season, the Heat were a pretty overwhelming team from long distance. I know what you might be thinking. Well, didn’t everybody shoot well in the bubble? Yes, but also this was an elite shooting team during the season prior to the shutdown. They took the seventh-highest volume of 3-pointers and made the second-highest percentage. This team was shooting the lights out long before the bubble ever became a thought in the league office’s mind. This season? Yikes.

They’re still taking the seventh-highest volume of 3-pointers in the NBA, but they’re 19th in 3-point percentage. It’s a big reason their offense has gone from top seven to 18th this season. So many percentages dropped from year-to-year:

• Duncan Robinson from 44.6 percent to 40.8 percent
• Tyler Herro 38.9 percent to 36.0 percent
• Jae Crowder’s 44.5 percent to Trevor Ariza’s 35.0 percent
• Kelly Olynyk was 40.6 percent last season, and he was down to 31.7 percent before he was traded

We’ve seen slight increases from Kendrick Nunn and Goran Dragic from last season, but Dragic also has missed 22 games and still doesn’t look healthy. The Heat were plus-69 from the 3-point line last season, and they’re minus-285 this season. Some of that is the defense, which has been tougher to be consistent with all of the absences. But it’s also they’re simply not making outside shots like they used to. They need that to return in the playoffs.

General outlook and expectations: If the Heat are healthy, you have to feel good about them. They’re in a matchup with Milwaukee for the second straight postseason, and they absolutely embarrassed them last year. But this is a different Bucks team, and it looks like a battered Heat team. The culture is great, but the Heat will have to have all hands on deck to upset the Bucks again. I don’t believe their expectations are high from the outside, but the inside still expects to be in a position to make the NBA Finals again.

5-seed Atlanta Hawks | 41-31 | +2.2 net rating | 9th offense | 18th defense

BetMGM.com odds: +3000 to win the East | -120 to win first round

Thing to like: This Atlanta Hawks team can really score, and it’s not just relying on Trae Young to put up points. That’s been the interesting thing since Nate McMillan took over. We’re not seeing Young gunning from deep and trying to emulate Damian Lillard or Steph Curry. We’re seeing him be a lot more measured in how he approaches things. The Hawks are an average team when it comes to making shots, but they get to the free-throw line a ton and they do a great job of keeping possessions alive on the boards. You don’t want to rely on free throws in the postseason. We’ve seen that go awry in the past for players and teams.

Young also has another gear he hasn’t had to tap into much since McMillan took over. If he starts rolling, the Hawks can be pretty impossible to stop. And if the Knicks’ vaunted defense can’t stop them, will the Knicks’ offense be able to keep up?

Thing to be concerned about: Stopping Julius Randle. The Hawks have a lot of versatility and a lot of weapons to deploy. They’ve got a really good defensive anchor in Clint Capela, who had a phenomenal season. With all that said, Randle ate them alive this season. He had a couple of 40-point efforts against Atlanta. His “bad game” was 28 points. He’s a matchup nightmare for most people in the NBA, especially with his newfound 3-point shot, but the Hawks have nobody who can hang with him. John Collins isn’t strong enough. Most guys aren’t. They don’t have bigs who are quick enough if they have the strength to try to keep their center of gravity against him.

Not being able to stop Randle in this series would set them up for disaster. The Knicks don’t shoot a ton of 3-pointers, but they’re good at knocking them down. So if you’re having to send constant doubles at Randle and he’s moving the ball, you’re either going to get breakdowns around the basket or breakdowns recovering to the 3-point line. De’Andre Hunter might be an option, but he’s not strong enough. Collins needs to play the best defense of his life. Solomon Hill has the strength, but he’s too slow. This could be a rough matchup for them.

General outlook and expectations: I’m not sure how many people are giving the Hawks a real chance in this Knicks series, but they might be really dangerous here. If the Hawks do in fact solve how to score against the Knicks over the course of this series, I don’t believe the Knicks can score with them. They don’t have close to the firepower the Hawks have. Bogdan Bogdanovic’s health and production could swing it if the Knicks also struggle to contain Young. Either way, this should be a lot of fun.

Also read: One on one with Hawks GM Travis Schlenk

4-seed New York Knicks | 41-31 | +2.4 net rating | 22nd offense | 4th defense

BetMGM.com odds: +3500 to win the East | +100 to win first round

Thing to like: The New York Knicks know their identity is defense. They have this sick fascination and desire to play defense every single possession of the game. I know it’s supposed to be that way, but that’s not how most humans — even those of the highest caliber in their field — always feel about the effort it takes to play great defense, especially in the NBA. Somehow, Tom Thibodeau has brainwashed them into craving to play defense. This is basically the same roster that finished bottom 20 in defense last season. Knowing your identity is so key in winning a playoff series. The Knicks know theirs, and they’re looking forward to solving this Hawks offense.

Thing to be concerned about: The Knicks don’t get a lot of easy buckets. They’re tied for the third-lowest field goal percentage within 3 feet of the rim. They rank 26th in points in the paint. The Knicks are 29th in 2-point percentage this season. The Knicks are roughly middle of the league when it comes to volume of free throws they take. They’re last in fastbreak points. So the Knicks really do struggle to generate a lot of easy buckets. The way they’ve played during the regular season has worked. But will it work in the postseason? At a certain point, you just have to generate some easy points that aren’t taxing to create. If they can’t figure that out, the decent Hawks defense will look a lot better.

General outlook and expectations: The Knicks already being in the postseason is a huge win, so it’s possible to just be happy with that, win or lose in the first round. The Knicks ended up with a first-round matchup they can realistically beat. It doesn’t take a lot of “what ifs” to get to the Knicks moving onto the next round. If they do that? They could lose by 40 per game in the second round, get swept, and this would still be their best season in maybe 20 years. Even better than that one really amazing Melo year.

Also read: How 7 stats will predict their series against the Atlanta Hawks

3-seed Milwaukee Bucks | 46-26 | +5.8 net rating | 4th (t) offense | 9th (t) defense

BetMGM.com odds: +375 to win the East | -275 to win first round

Thing to like: Jrue Holiday as the Eric Bledsoe replacement in this series. The Milwaukee Bucks’ playoff demise the last two seasons is well documented, so we don’t need to get too far into it. But we can highlight the point guard position as one of the upgrades they made this year. Bringing Holiday into the mix immediately gave them a far more reliable player on both ends of the floor. Not only is Holiday better than Bledsoe on defense (tough to be), but he’s far more reliable on offense. Holiday is a legitimate scorer and a guy who knocks down outside shots consistently. Opponents can no longer cheat off the Bucks point guard to help against the bigger stars.

Not to mention, Holiday might be Milwaukee’s best option on Butler in this series. Holiday gives up size, but he’s one of the best defenders in the league and he’s strong enough to make Jimmy work. If you have Giannis Antetokounmpo or Khris Middleton helping Holiday in this matchup with smart rotations, it could blow up everything the Heat want to do on offense.

Thing to be concerned about: Giannis anywhere beyond the restricted area. Here’s the stat of Giannis this season: He made 80.5 percent of his shots in the restricted area. Not a huge shock there, but that’s still wildly efficient for most players. Giannis is dominant when he’s around the rim, which is why you see him dunking and screaming so often down there. His jumper went in 33.3 percent of the time. His 3-point shot? 30.3 percent. He took 539 shots in the restricted area and settled for his jumper 417 times. Roughly 38 percent of his shots came from jumpers. 49 percent of his shots happened in the restricted area.

His effective field goal percentage in the restricted area is 80.7 percent because … obviously … even for as long as his arms are, he’s not taking 3-pointers in the restricted area. His effective field goal percentage on jumpers? Clocks in at 41.3 percent. Giannis taking a jumper is nearly half as efficient as him at the rim. He takes way too many jumpers. They’ve adjusted some of this with him in the dunker’s spot, and it’s the way to go. But will he have the poise to keep sticking around the hoop when Butler is trying to carve them up in isolation? Or will Giannis want to be a hero and make his team wildly less efficient? Nobody should want him taking jumpers, even if he hits a few.

General outlook and expectations: I don’t know that the Bucks have expectations anymore outside the organization. That’s a good thing. The last two years have left the Bucks full of doubts from people on the outside looking in. They’re considered to be regular season champs and postseason frauds. That should actually help them here. And they have a great chance to enact revenge on the Heat from last season. But Mike Budenholzer will have to adjust in this series. He has to match Spoelstra for his team’s talent to overcome Miami.

Also read: Can Bucks get revenge against Heat for bursting their bubble last postseason?

2-seed Brooklyn Nets | 48-24 | +4.2 net rating | 1st offense | 22nd defense

BetMGM.com odds: -110 to win the East | -1100 to win first round

Thing to like: Do I even have to say it? This Brooklyn Nets team had the best offense in NBA history, and the big three of Kevin Durant, James Harden and Kyrie Irving only played 202 minutes together in eight games. Harden went back to being a playmaker first and a scorer second. Durant reminded everybody how effortlessly he scores with a 66.6 percent true shooting in his first season back from the Achilles injury. Irving has been relieved of point guard duties, and they just need him to score. Maybe the only two better scorers in this league are on his own team, although Curry and Beal are obviously in the conversation too.

It leaves Joe Harris and Jeff Green wide open. The Nets are here to outscore you. That’s the point of basketball, but most teams try to do it with a mix of offense and defense. The Nets can probably do it with just offense.

Thing to be concerned about: It’s obvious, but health and defense. Durant and Irving missed a bunch of games. They have health concerns over a good chunk of their respective careers, so just assuming they’ll be available in the playoffs isn’t smart. Even Harden’s hamstring issue toward the end of the season has to worry the Nets a bit. Hamstrings are always tricky. If the Nets are healthy, they believe the talent will overcome. And it kind of looks like that’s a good bet. But this team doesn’t defend well. When the defense looks fine, it’s because those stars are out of the lineup and the role players who can defend a bit are able to get after it.

How much defense needs to be played to win a title? Historically, a lot. But history also doesn’t have many teams with this kind of star power. The Nets need to be timely defenders, and healthy. If they’re not, this could end up being a big fall for them, which a lot of people will hope for. We have to pretend to hate super teams once they’re formed, even though it’s good for the NBA throughout its history.

General outlook and expectations: The Nets are the favorites in the East despite not being the top seed because it’s hard to ignore this level of star talent together. They don’t have to defend much, but if it comes down to defending Embiid, I’m not sure they have enough big bodies to keep him from dominating. But does anybody have enough shooting to keep up with them? They’re banking on that being a no.

Also read: Inside James Harden’s beautiful mind, the tool that could lead the former MVP — and the Nets — to an NBA title

1-seed Philadelphia 76ers | 49-23 | +5.5 net rating | 13th offense | 2nd defense

BetMGM.com odds: +300 to win the East | -1000 to win first round

Thing to like: This Philadelphia 76ers team is smothering. Absolutely smothering. And they’re flat-out bigger than everybody else, it seems. Embiid is a monster all to his own, and he’s great on both ends of the floor. Not just good. Great. In fact, the Sixers might be so good defensively that they end up with three players on the All-Defense teams between Embiid, Simmons and Thybulle. All of them are deserving of a spot on the first or second team. The Sixers were really good defensively last season, but that was mostly because of their dominance at home. They had the eighth-best defense in the league for the season. Second-best defense at home, but 16th best defense on the road. To put that into perspective, the Sixers were ranked one spot higher than Sacramento for road defense last season.

This year? Second best defense at home; third-best defense on the road. Their defense travels outside of Wells Fargo Center. They want to beat you up. They have balance so their defense doesn’t necessarily sacrifice any offense. It isn’t an either/or thing with them. If they have Embiid, Tobias Harris, and Seth Curry cooking on offense with the whole squad defending on the other end, it’s extremely hard to beat this team. When Embiid plays, they’re a 62-win team (on pace in a regular 82-game season).

Thing to be concerned about: We have yet to see a dominant postseason run by Embiid and Simmons. That’s not to say they haven’t been good in the playoffs before. We’ve seen them be really good at times. Embiid dominated Brooklyn in the first round a couple of years ago, but then he was awful against Toronto in the next round. Doc Rivers is here to help keep them focused and keep them moving in the right direction. All of the lulls they’ve gone through in the past? He’s there to keep them out of it or quickly guide them out of it if they happened.

The Process was about bringing in these stars to tip the scales in their favor. It’s worked in the regular season. It’s come up short in the postseason. Is that bad luck? Is that circ*mstance? Is that coaching? Or was that just these players’ flaws can be exposed when it comes to a seven-game series? The Sixers and their stars in particular have to answer that in a positive manner. As of right now, no excuses are available. You have home-court advantage. You have guys eligible for the top awards. The Sixers must make a deep playoff run. If they go down swinging, that’s fine. They just can’t stop swinging.

General outlook and expectations: Have to feel really good about the Sixers. The Nets have made the Sixers overlooked quite a bit at times this season. Philadelphia gets an easy first round and maybe even an easy second round. Knicks or Hawks? The Sixers at their potential will make quick work of either. So anything less than the conference finals is apocalyptic. Face Brooklyn or Miami or Milwaukee in the conference finals, and they have to be in position to win the series, even if they don’t. Sixers are real title contenders. Let’s see them remind everybody every single game.

Also read: Seven burning Sixers questions for the East’s No. 1 seed heading into the playoffs

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(Photo of Jayson Tatum and Kyrie Irving: Brad Penner / USA Today)