{"id":10148,"date":"2025-05-05T08:33:12","date_gmt":"2025-05-05T08:33:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/10148\/"},"modified":"2025-05-05T08:33:12","modified_gmt":"2025-05-05T08:33:12","slug":"who-will-win-east-west-conference-semifinals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/10148\/","title":{"rendered":"Who will win East, West conference semifinals?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"play\"<\/p>\n

Do the Thunder have what it takes to reach the Finals?<\/p>\n

Oklahoma City has the pieces\u2014but do they have the experience to win three playoff series?<\/p>\n

Cleveland Cavaliers vs. Indiana Pacers<\/a>. Boston Celtics vs. New York Knicks<\/a>. Oklahoma City Thunder vs. Denver Nuggets<\/a>. Minnesota Timberwolves<\/a> vs. Golden State Warriors<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The NBA\u2019s Eastern conference semifinals are set; the Western Conference semifinals fell into place Sunday night when the Warriors beat the Houston Rockets in Game 7<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The No. 1 seeds (Cavaliers, Thunder) have been impressive; sixth-seeded Minnesota sent the Los Angeles Lakers packing with relative ease; Denver routed the Los Angeles Clippers in Game 7; Boston rolled through Orlando; Indiana beat down beat-up Milwaukee; New York out-executed the Pistons in fourth quarters; Golden State’s experience proved too much for the Rockets.<\/p>\n

CONFERENCE SEMIFINALS PREVIEWS: NYK-BOS<\/a> | IND-CLE<\/a> | DEN-OKC<\/a><\/p>\n

Who will win and advance to the conference finals? USA TODAY Sports experts make their predictions:<\/p>\n

NBA predictions for conference semifinalsLorenzo Reyes:\u00a0Cavaliers in 6Heather Tucker:\u00a0Cavaliers in 6James Williams:\u00a0Cavaliers in 6Jeff Zillgitt:\u00a0Cavaliers in 5Lorenzo Reyes:\u00a0Celtics in 5Heather Tucker:\u00a0Celtics in 5James Williams:\u00a0Celtics in 6Jeff Zillgitt:\u00a0Celtics in 6Lorenzo Reyes:\u00a0Thunder is sixHeather Tucker:\u00a0Thunder in sixJames Williams:\u00a0Thunder in fiveJeff Zillgitt:\u00a0Thunder in fiveNo. 6 Minnesota Timberwolves vs. No. 7 Golden State WarriorsLorenzo Reyes:\u00a0Timberwolves in sixHeather Tucker:\u00a0Timberwolves in sevenJames Williams:\u00a0Timberwolves in sixJeff Zillgitt:\u00a0Timberwolves in seven<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Do the Thunder have what it takes to reach the Finals? Oklahoma City has the pieces\u2014but do they…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10149,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[740,7,45,75,306,46,311,305,193,301,187,309,164,292,194,113,126,304,307,152,70,85,6,11,239,191,67,302,310,179,114,34,65,211,276,275,286,66,83,17,277,64,312,308,63,82,73,255,303],"class_list":{"0":"post-10148","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-analysis","9":"tag-basketball","10":"tag-boston","11":"tag-boston-celtics","12":"tag-cavaliers","13":"tag-celtics","14":"tag-city","15":"tag-cleveland","16":"tag-cleveland-cavaliers","17":"tag-denver","18":"tag-denver-nuggets","19":"tag-golden","20":"tag-golden-state-warriors","21":"tag-houston","22":"tag-houston-rockets","23":"tag-indiana","24":"tag-indiana-pacers","25":"tag-knicks","26":"tag-minnesota","27":"tag-minnesota-timberwolves","28":"tag-national","29":"tag-national-sports","30":"tag-nba","31":"tag-nba-playoffs","32":"tag-new","33":"tag-new-york-knicks","34":"tag-news","35":"tag-nuggets","36":"tag-oklahoma","37":"tag-oklahoma-city-thunder","38":"tag-pacers","39":"tag-playoffs","40":"tag-point","41":"tag-rockets","42":"tag-scores","43":"tag-sport","44":"tag-sport-scores-u0026-statistics","45":"tag-sports","46":"tag-sports-news","47":"tag-state","48":"tag-statistics","49":"tag-the","50":"tag-thunder","51":"tag-timberwolves","52":"tag-to","53":"tag-to-the-point","54":"tag-u0026","55":"tag-warriors","56":"tag-york"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10148","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10148"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10148\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10149"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10148"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10148"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10148"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}