Griffin Wong details his best bets and predictions for the Eastern Conference Finals, Western Conference Finals, and NBA Finals.
It’s never too early to start looking ahead to the NBA playoff chase. It was clear by this point last season, when the Oklahoma City Thunder were 9-2, that they were among the favorites to win the NBA championship, and they ultimately went on to claim it. Of course, surprises could be in store — the Indiana Pacers were 5-5 at this point last season and went on to push Oklahoma City to seven games in the NBA Finals — but for now, there’s enough data to at least draw semi-rational conclusions regarding how the end of the season might play out.
Unsurprisingly, the 10-1 Thunder are +210 favorites to become the first repeat champions since the 2016-18 Golden State Warriors at DraftKings Sportsbook, followed by the Denver Nuggets (+550) and the Cleveland Cavaliers (+850).
New York Knicks (+350) over Detroit Pistons (+1200)
While most of the bad teams in the East — namely, the Washington Wizards and Brooklyn Nets — were expected to finish near the bottom of the conference standings, some of the teams expected to be good have also floundered, leaving the conference relatively open. New York and Cleveland were widely expected to be near the top of the standings, and so far, both are, with the Knicks slotting in second and the Cavaliers in fourth.
So far, though, the hottest team in the conference has been Detroit, which lost to New York in the first round last season in a tightly-fought six game series in which each of the final four games was decided by one possession. The Pistons are on a league-best seven-game winning streak and sit atop the East. Detroit has been especially stellar defensively, posting the fourth-best defensive rating and holding opponents to the lowest percentage in the restricted area. After finishing third in Most Improved Player voting last season, Cade Cunningham has picked up where he left off, averaging 27.5 points, 5.4 rebounds, and 9.9 assists per game. Ausar Thompson and Jalen Duren have both made strides, and at some point, the Pistons will also welcome back Jaden Ivey, who was averaging an efficient 17.6 points per game last season before suffering a fractured fibula on January 1.
Still, I trust the Knicks more in the playoffs. Though they lost to the Pacers in the conference finals last season, they over-achieved by beating the Boston Celtics in the second round. New York is taking advantage of Karl-Anthony Towns’ shooting ability by attempting the third-most three-pointers per game after finishing fourth-to-last in that stat last season, and it’s also making nearly 25 more passes per game than it did in 2024-25, limiting Jalen Brunson’s offensive responsibility and unlocking Mikal Bridges as a secondary playmaker. As a result, the Knicks rank second in offensive rating despite poor shooting seasons from Brunson and Towns. New York has only gotten 66 minutes from starting center Mitchell Robinson as it carefully manages his minutes, but in that time, the 27-year-old has a ludicrous 34.3% offensive rebounding percentage and a plus-36.8 on-court net rating. It also has plenty of depth; Guerschon Yabusele, who started more than half of the Philadelphia 76ers’ games last season, has barely seen the court.
I’m not convinced that Cleveland is as good as its squad last season was because, for the most part, it was remarkably healthy. I’m still concerned about the Cavaliers’ ability to defend, given their combination of undersized guards in the back-court. Perhaps Lonzo Ball, acquired from the Chicago Bulls to provide perimeter defense at the backup point guard position, can be an upgrade over Ty Jerome, who was terrible in the 2025 playoffs, but he’s one of the most oft-injured players in NBA history. Every other team in the East has even more questions: the Orlando Magic still haven’t figured out how to shoot threes, the Milwaukee Bucks don’t have enough depth around Giannis Antetokounmpo, the Celtics have no center, and the 76ers have constant health concerns regarding Joel Embiid and Paul George.
Oklahoma City Thunder (+150) over Denver Nuggets (+370)
After choosing the teams with the second- and sixth-best odds in the Eastern Conference, I’m going more chalky with my prediction for the West, despite the conference’s incredible top-to-bottom talent. Although +150 odds more than six months before the conference finals makes it a low-ceiling proposition and no defending champion has even made it back to the Finals since the 2018-19 Warriors, Oklahoma City should cruise its way through the playoffs unless it is derailed by injuries. Choosing the second conference finalist was a lot trickier, but the Nuggets have the best player in the world.
The Thunder have jumped out to a 10-1 start — the best opening stretch by a defending champion since Golden State won each of its first 24 games in 2015-16 — despite being without their second-best player, Jalen Williams, who experienced a setback in his recovery from offseason wrist surgery. Oklahoma City’s three best defenders — Chet Holmgren, Luguentz Dort, and Alex Caruso — have each missed four games with various injuries, and Nikola Topić, currently sidelined with testicular cancer, could be an X-factor if he’s able to return. The Thunder haven’t even hit their jump shots — they rank sixth-to-last in three-point percentage after finishing sixth last season — but that’s bound to improve with shooting luck normalization. Oklahoma City leads the NBA in turnover differential, opponent points in the paint, opponent fast-break points, and opponent second chance points while ranking second in opponent points off of turnovers. Defensively, the Thunder are 3.6 points per 100 possessions better than any other team despite opponents shooting the seventh-highest percentage on wide-open threes against them.
Denver is — narrowly — the second-best team in the West. The Nuggets arguably should’ve taken down Oklahoma City last season, falling in seven games in the second round thanks to some atrocious shooting luck. In that series, they shot zero-for-19 on open or wide-open threes in the fourth quarters of Games 4 and 5, which they lost by a combined 12 points. Denver made plenty of changes in the offseason that should make it better in the long-term, bringing back Bruce Brown Jr. to replace Russell Westbrook, Tim Hardaway Jr. to provide shooting, Jonas Valančiūnas to survive on the glass in non-Nikola Jokić minutes, and Cameron Johnson to provide shooting and defense. The Nuggets’ defense is due for some regression — opponents have shot just 29.3% on wide-open threes against them — but they haven’t shot the ball very well and still have the league’s third-most dominant offense. Jokić is leading the league in both rebounds and assists and has made 76.8% of his two-pointers.
In my mind, Denver holds a slight edge over the Houston Rockets. Though some aspects of the Rockets’ dominant offense, buoyed by an eye-popping 41.4% offensive rebounding percentage, should be fairly sustainable, I’m concerned about their lackluster assist percentage and assist-to-turnover ratio, as well as the fact that they’ve shot an unsustainable 46.6% on wide-open threes. They’ve also allowed the second-most wide-open three-point attempts, so they’re vulnerable to a red-hot team, and Kevin Durant is injury-prone and mediocre on defense at this point in his career. As for the other West teams, the Los Angeles Lakers have allowed the fourth-highest shooting percentage in the restricted area, the San Antonio Spurs are too young, the Golden State Warriors are too old, and the Minnesota Timberwolves have struggled mightily on defense without Rudy Gobert on the floor.
Best Bet to Win the NBA Finals
Oklahoma City Thunder over New York Knicks (+1300)
In a battle of basketball’s only two white, blue, and orange franchises, I’d expect the Thunder to come out on top and put a pause on the NBA’s era of unprecedented parity. While the Knicks have been run-of-the-mill great this season, Oklahoma City has been historically excellent; one season after setting a new NBA record for single-season point differential, the Thunder have one-upped themselves so far in 2025-26 despite dealing with so many injuries. Of course, it’s no guarantee that Oklahoma City will get any healthier — Holmgren, especially, is notoriously injury-prone — but with quality depth and continuity all across the roster, that might not matter come playoff time.
Neither of the teams’ games last season was particularly close. The Thunder won by 10 at home on January 3 and had a much more dominant 24-point victory a week later at Madison Square Garden, and Holmgren didn’t even suit up for either game. Oklahoma City did benefit from plenty of luck in those games — they were the Thunder’s fifth- and sixth-best three-point shooting games of the season, while they were the Knicks’ worst and 14th-worst — but New York did a good job protecting the ball in both games and it didn’t matter. Gilgeous-Alexander out-played Clutch Player of the Year Brunson in the second half of both games to seal the deal. In the two matchups, Brunson shot just four-for-11 when guarded by Cason Wallace and one-for-seven when guarded by Gilgeous-Alexander, and and Bridges allowed Gilgeous-Alexander to shoot nine-for-18 with seven assists and only one turnover.
The Knicks have improved, and they should be able to dominate the glass against a team that has allowed the 12th-most boards per game, but Oklahoma City has the advantage in just about everything else. Despite turning the ball over nearly as infrequently as the Thunder, New York hasn’t been great at generating turnovers and hasn’t been particularly effective on the fast-break. The Knicks have also allowed the sixth-most shot attempts at the rim, and while they have protected the rim well so far this season, they don’t have as much depth inside as Oklahoma City does in case Robinson goes down with an injury or fouls out. It won’t be completely uncompetitive — Brunson, Towns, and OG Anunoby are too good not to win at least one game, and New York might enter the Finals with a rest advantage after going through the easier East — but the Thunder should be comfortably favored in a hypothetical series.
Download the DraftKings Sportsbook app on Apple or Google!