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How the schedule could impact three key NBA playoff races
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It’s a bit quaint to look back on the past in the NBA and remember the late-season playoff hunts. Teams were really seeking the No. 1 seed and home-court advantage through the playoffs. When Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls had their double three-peat in the 1990s, you know what their record was from March 5 through the end of the regular season? 112-30. They won 79% of their games, and Jordan didn’t sit them out.
With load management and the play-in tournament, there are different ways of managing a team’s late stretch to set up for playoff success. The Indiana Pacers came from the 4-seed to nearly take out the Oklahoma City Thunder in the NBA Finals last season. The Dallas Mavericks came from a 5-seed to make the Finals the year before. So now there are different targets. A top-six seed is important to avoid the play-in, but note that Miami made the Finals in 2023 after going through the play-in.
What follows are some of the races for different seeds that teams hope to set themselves up for in the playoffs in April.
All stats through Sunday.
Jump to a section:
West top 4 | East No. 2 | East top 6

Western Conference Top 4 Seed
The Thunder and Spurs each have at least a 98% chance to stay in the top two seeds in the West. The play-in spots are nearly locked in across the Suns, Warriors, Clippers and Trail Blazers, with some uncertainty in their order. But there is a race among four teams to get to the two remaining first-round home-court advantage spots.
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Projected record: 51-31 (55% chance at top-four seed)
Remaining strength of schedule rank: 10th hardest
Number of tanking teams they’ll face: 4 (Washington, Utah, Sacramento, Chicago, Dallas, Memphis, and Indiana are considered to be tankful teams)
With ESPN Analytics, we tend to approach things quantitatively, capturing the essence of a story through numbers. Houston, for example, wins games by an average of plus-4.7 points, with a league-leading plus-4.1 of that coming solely from its offensive rebounding. The Rockets are also good in transition offense, getting plus-3.4 net points per game, ranking No. 7 in the NBA. They also turn it over a lot, 15.7 times per game, the most of any team currently in playoff position. On the other end of the floor, they’re top seven on defense.
Sometimes those numbers paint a nice picture. In this case, if you look carefully, a lot of those numbers for Houston are actually a lot like the Detroit Pistons, the best team in the league. The Pistons are fourth in offensive rebounding and fifth in transition offense, have the third most turnovers among playoff teams, and play top-five defense.
So does Houston have a chance to pull it together like Detroit? When watching the tape, what comes to mind are words such as “ugly,” “ill-fitting” and “disconnected.”
For the Rockets’ sake, hopefully the stretch run follows the numbers, not the words.
Critical games: Two games against the Lakers (March 16 and 18), two games against the Wolves (March 25, April 10) and a game against Denver on Wednesday.
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Projected record: 50-32 (52% chance at top-four seed)
Remaining strength of schedule rank: Fourth hardest
Number of tanking teams they’ll face: 3
The Timberwolves have had the fewest losses added by injury this season, a year removed from being fourth best at it. Their general health is a superpower that partially makes up for them being just generally good, not great. They’re top 10 in almost every extended four-factor metric, but they’re in the top five in only one: transition offense.
Anthony Edwards is great, though. He is top 15 in overall net points metrics — whether it’s total net points, net points per 100 possessions or WAR. That’s All-NBA level, but is it blow-you-away great? Ant has the one-word nickname, but is he up there with SGA, Jokic, Luka, Kawhi and Spida? Does he need to be? Tyrese Haliburton carried a solid Indiana roster to within a few minutes of a title last season as the No. 4 seed. The Pacers earned that spot by having a 15-4 record from March 11 to the end of the season. Minnesota has the fourth-most-difficult schedule down the stretch, so it will be hard to do that, but Indiana coincidentally had the fifth-hardest schedule down the stretch last season as well.
Critical games: Lakers (Tuesday), Clippers (Wednesday) and Warriors (Friday). That could be a fun or agonizing trip. Then a pause before two against Houston (March 25 and April 10).
Projected record: 50-32 (59% chance at top-four seed)
Remaining strength of schedule rank: 12th hardest
Number of tanking teams they’ll face: 5
The biggest hurdle the Nuggets face down the stretch is the sudden malaise of Nikola Jokic (or mal-wrist, per ESPN’s Brian Windhorst). For years, he has been a standout in terms of performance, as legitimately the best player on the planet. The Nuggets were dominant with him on the court and bad with him off it. His ability to make a pass no one else could imagine turned them into an automatic top offense.
The Nuggets had the best offense before his injury this season, and he was the second-best offensive player in the league (behind Shai Gilgeous-Alexander). Since his return, their offense has fallen to sixth and his net points per 48 minutes level has dropped to seventh. Did they use Jokic-style kryptonite as part of his rehab?
Sure, the Nuggets are missing Aaron Gordon and he’s important, but only Jokic makes opponents fear them. And he hasn’t been right.
Critical games: One game against the Lakers (March 14), a game against Houston (March 11), two games against the Spurs (April 4 and 12) and a game against the Warriors (March 29).
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Projected record: 48-34 (31% chance at top-four seed)
Remaining strength of schedule rank: Sixth hardest
Number of tanking teams they’ll face: 5
The phrase “treating people like numbers” implies an impersonal touch to working with people. In the great game of basketball, especially in the analytics era that I helped push myself, I think of this as often manifesting itself somewhat in lineup analysis: Which lineups are good and which are bad? The Lakers have messed around with a lot of lineups. Who can we play with Luka Doncic and LeBron James to actually be good? Should we play Austin Reaves as a starter or as a reserve? Should we play Jarred Vanderbilt at all?
Those are questions that numbers can provide some guidance on, but coaching is about figuring out how to best put those same players together and then teaching them. It’s not just about fiddling with the pieces, but also making those pieces work together better.
And that is what is staring down coach JJ Redick currently, the past six months and the next couple of months: how to coach the guys he has so they do their roles better. It isn’t happening now. Doncic, James and Reaves are all good, but they don’t complement each other: James and Reaves have better offensive net points rates without Doncic; Doncic and Reaves are better without James; and Doncic and James are better without Reaves. Figuring out how they can best work together could take the Lakers into the top four and beyond with the talent they have.
Critical games: The next 10 days or so are critical, with two games against Houston and one apiece against Denver and Minnesota. Winning all of them is hard, but these guys all want the spotlight, and these games will bring it.
Eastern Conference 2-seed
In the East, the Celtics, Knicks and Cavs are bunched up in a heat to get the No. 2 seed, with their chances to capture it changing a good amount with each game. But then there is also a four-way fight between the Raptors, Sixers, Magic and Heat to get the No. 5 and No. 6 seeds to avoid the play-in.
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Projected record: 53-29 (53% chance at top-two seed)
Remaining strength of schedule rank: Hardest
Number of tanking teams they’ll face: 2
The Celtics have the hardest schedule remaining per the BPI, but Jayson Tatum is back! His return — despite questions of how well he’ll fit in — is viewed favorably by the BPI, which is why it gives them good odds at the No. 2 seed in the East. It is really assuming that he comes back close to where he has been (a top-15 player). If he is at that level, the medical staff did their job and he got sufficient reps with all the rotation players who weren’t there when he got hurt — Hugo Gonzalez, Nikola Vucevic, Luka Garza.
The Celtics have done a great job ignoring the Tatum question in the room so far and taking care of business. They aren’t actually better than last season (when they won 61 games), but it feels like it because they never put up a stinker (until the Charlotte game last Wednesday). They’re the anti-Lakers, who seem to either win or get blown out this season. Tatum’s return is only going to add to their competitiveness and their talent level. Any awkwardness in fitting Tatum with teammates is better to work out before the playoffs, regardless of what seed they get.
Critical games: The game against the Knicks on April 9 looks critical now, but there is a whole month ahead of that matchup to determine whether it stays critical. The Celtics still get the Thunder twice and the Spurs once, which are more critical as tests of their high-end competitiveness than toward keeping the second seed.
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Projected record: 53-29 (38% chance at top-two seed)
Remaining strength of schedule rank: 24th hardest
Number of tanking teams they’ll face: 6
You know what probably hurts the Knicks the most? The fact that their fan base thinks they’re title favorites after every win and that they should trade every guy on their roster (except Jalen Brunson) after every loss.
Yes, the Knicks are inconsistent. OG Anunoby, Josh Hart and Mikal Bridges are all among the top 50 most inconsistent players across the past three seasons. (The fan base would subjectively add Karl-Anthony Towns, too.) What this means is, over the past nearly three seasons, Anunoby has had 44 games with plus-3 net points or more, 44 games with worse than minus-3 net points, and 84 games in between. He’s good for a game, average for two, and then bad for a game. With two other guys following the same pattern, that’s a big reason the fan base is frustrated.
Critical games: The Knicks play Boston on April 9, and it could be critical for both teams to get the No. 2. Outside of that, taking care of some of their tough matchups — Houston, Charlotte and the Clippers — is what would benefit them the most.
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Projected record: 52-30 (11% chance at top-two seed)
Remaining strength of schedule rank: 29th hardest
Number of tanking teams they’ll face: 7
Despite what has seemed like a disappointing season for the Cavs, they have the second-best offense when schedule-adjusted and the BPI ranks them fifth overall in terms of playoff strength (which is when the best players will fight through injury).
But the BPI liked them in the playoffs last year, and they disappointed with a second-round exit to the Indiana Pacers. That has been the theme for this team: playoff disappointments despite how strong the regular season was. Donovan Mitchell has spun the regular-season struggles this year as an opportunity to learn to fight through adversity in preparation for the upcoming playoffs. With that mentality, I’m not sure the Cavs care about getting the No. 2 seed. They’ll be happy anywhere in the top four in the East, and they have a 98% chance of that.
Critical games: The Cavs have no head-to-head matchups left with either Boston or New York, so it’s really about taking care of business against a pretty easy schedule.
Eastern Conference Top 6 Seeds
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Projected record: 45-37 (54% chance at top-six seed)
Remaining strength of schedule rank: 17th hardest
Number of tanking teams they’ll face: 4
The Raptors are 6-17 against the BPI top 10 teams in the NBA, and they have gone 10-13 against the teams remaining on their schedule. Their ability to keep the play-in at bay is currently questionable at best. The BPI might give them a solid 54% chance of making the top six in the East, but it has whiffed more on Toronto predictions this season than any other playoff contender other than Philadelphia.
The BPI doesn’t trust the Raptors. Why? One part is normal: Their best player just isn’t elite. Scottie Barnes is a good player, but he’s not an All-NBA caliber player yet. The other part is that they’ve been playing without a legitimate center for much of the season — Barnes, Collin Murray-Boyles and Sandro Mamukelashvili have filled in as a committee. Barnes and Murray-Boyles are tough, and Mamukelashvili is tall, so it gives them a chance. But having Jakob Poeltl return from injury recently is what can really help because he’s good in putbacks. The Raptors can get offensive boards, but size like Poeltl’s helps a lot in converting them into points.
Critical games: The Raptors get Miami twice in the last week of the season, and those games will likely be important. Orlando at the end of March also will be critical.
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Projected record: 44-38 (24% chance at top-six seed)
Remaining strength of schedule rank: 21st hardest
Number of tanking teams they’ll face: 6
Tyrese Maxey leads the NBA in net points coming in transition — a combination of volume and efficiency. But when the Sixers faced the second-best transition defense in the league, the Spurs on March 3, Maxey was stymied in both transition and the half court. And that’s important for the Sixers down the stretch.
Maxey has averaged plus-5.3 offensive net points per game when the Sixers win, minus-0.4 when they lose, the biggest split on the Sixers and a top-10 split across the league. Without a healthy Joel Embiid or Paul George, he has to carry a lot, so it’s not too difficult for playoff-level teams to limit him. Embiid’s performance has been good this season at plus-3.2 net points per 48 minutes, but you never know when he’s going to play. We know that George won’t be back until later in March with his suspension, so Maxey will be carrying the load for a while once he returns from his right finger sprain.
Critical games: The Sixers have only one game remaining against this tier of teams (at Miami, March 30) and it’s their most critical game. Then doing some hard work to beat Charlotte, Minnesota, Houston and Detroit will help them. Otherwise, it’s not a tough schedule.
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Projected record: 44-38 (50% chance at top-six seed)
Remaining strength of schedule rank: 14th hardest
Number of tanking teams they’ll face: 5
Orlando gets seven games against tanking teams. So far this season, the Magic’s nominal team leader, Paolo Banchero, actually hasn’t been very good against those teams, averaging just plus-1.9 net points per 48 minutes, which is 110th. But that was when the tankers still wanted to win! Since the deadline, which is when tanksgiving began, Banchero has produced plus-5.3 net points per 48 minutes. If he keeps that up, it should help as he has Orlando’s highest usage rate.
But, that list of most inconsistent players I mentioned regarding the Knicks before — Banchero leads that, as No. 1 in most inconsistent performances in the past three years. If you want to know whether the Magic will win or lose, look to him.
Critical games: The Magic get Toronto and Miami before the end of March, and those games will go the furthest in impacting their top-six hopes. Keeping Charlotte and Atlanta (twice) at bay are their other big ones.
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Projected record: 45-37 (55% chance at top-six seed)
Remaining strength of schedule rank: 22nd hardest
Number of tanking teams they’ll face: 4
Miami is the team that went 11-30 in 2016-17, then went 30-11 the rest of the way. I always remember that when it comes to Erik Spoelstra-led teams. They can really turn the ship around in a hurry. The Heat did it when they went to the Finals against Denver in 2023, as well, after having to go through the play-in as the No. 8 seed.
They’re probably saying, “We don’t need no top-six seed.”
Well, the coaching staff isn’t saying that. Coaches generally are some of the most worried people in the game. They want every game to be easy and, frankly, the Heat have a mixed bag of easy and hard. They get the Wizards three times, but …
Critical games: As the weather turns hot in Miami, so does the schedule. The Heat play Toronto twice, as well as Charlotte, Philadelphia and Orlando the rest of the way, all games that will shape the final top six.
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Supreme Court is only way to end Trump’s control of midterms
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What if Trump tries to overturn election results while ignoring court orders? ‘I have such a hard time believing that would happen,’ one judge said. ‘But I think you have to consider the possibility.’
Supreme Court gives Trump win in mail ballot dispute
The Supreme Court backed part of President Trump’s executive order cracking down on mail-in ballots ahead of the midterm elections.
North Carolina will start sending out the first general election mail ballots on Sept. 4 for the Nov. 3 midterms. Whether the voters who use those types of ballots in that state and across the country get disenfranchised will likely soon be decided by the U.S. Supreme Court.
President Donald Trump and his administration have been battling in federal court with voter rights groups and 24 states that are trying to prevent him from what clearly seems to be an unconstitutional federalization of our elections.
Trump, in an executive order in March, directed the Department of Homeland Security to compile state-by-state lists of eligible voters and then have the U.S. Postal Service develop rules about who can vote using mail ballots.
As always with Trump overreach, this has become a mess in every kind of way.
Trump is fighting a legal battle for control over mail-in voting
A federal whistleblower involved in the development of those rules has warned that they could cause “major disruptions” in voting and that the Trump administration seemed intent on hiding that, according to a letter to the Postal Service from U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat.
And there is also a major legal problem with Trump’s executive order: The U.S. Constitution says states run elections, not the president. Trump can’t just decide he has a new power and then act on it.
That prompts three very serious questions. Will the conservative-heavy Supreme Court stop Trump? Will Trump follow judicial orders? And will the Republican-controlled House and Senate force Trump to obey the courts?
To sort out where this goes next, I spoke to three former federal judges from the Article III Coalition, a good-government effort from Keep Our Republic to preserve an independent judiciary.
Will the Supreme Court eventually stop Trump’s election antics?
Former Judge John E. Jones III, who was chief judge for the Middle District of Pennsylvania, predicted a swift return to the Supreme Court for Trump’s executive order.
Procedural issues prompted a majority of the Supreme Court justices on Aug. 24 to block a federal judge in Boston from temporarily pausing Trump’s executive order. But by week’s end, that judge’s temporary restraining order was back in place – and Trump’s administration was appealing it.
Jones told me he expects the federal courts at every level to find Trump’s executive order unconstitutional.
“I struggle to find a scenario where the Supreme Court does anything other than find that this is a violation of Article I, Section 4 of the Constitution, in that these are executive agencies, and absent lawmaking by the Congress, the executive branch simply doesn’t have the authority to do this,” Jones said.
Retired Judge Liam O’Grady, who served in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, told me the Supreme Court might take control of the case directly, skipping over the appellate court, because the subject already reached the high court once and the midterms are looming.
“They may look at 60 days before an election and say, we now should decide this issue,” O’Grady said. “You would hope they would, because the states need direction.”
Former Judge Jeremy Fogel, who served in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, was leery of handicapping the Supreme Court on this because the justices could have put an end to the executive order the first time it reached them.
“I think they’re sending ambiguous signals,” Fogel told me. “That may be just because you’ve got justices in a lot of different places.”
Trump has spent years fighting the US voting system
Jones, who was still a judge when Trump tried to overturn the 2020 election in more than 60 court cases, said the federal judiciary had prepared back then for the potential wave of legal filings and will be ready again. And he pointed to recent controversies – aggressive federal agents demanding to inspect Wyoming’s primary election in August, the FBI’s seizure of 2020 ballots in Georgia’s Fulton County earlier this year – as potential harbingers for future cases.
“I think past is prologue, and given the administration’s repeated attempts to, in effect, federalize election administration, almost anything goes from this point on,” Jones said, adding that Trump is trying to drive a narrative that “elections are inherently fraudulent.”
O’Grady noted that the federal judge in Boston, while pausing Trump’s executive order with an Aug. 27 temporary restraining order, pointed out “that the government didn’t put in any evidence of fraud occurring in mail-in voting to substantiate the need to act so quickly.”
Fogel sees a Trump-led public influence campaign to question election integrity as a “coordinated effort to suppress the vote,” recalling how judge after judge in 2020 threw out Trump’s legal challenges for lack of evidence. He expects more of the same in November.
“I think it’s likely they’re going to use all of the levers available to prevent losing control of Congress,” Fogel said.
My last question for the judges worried Fogel: What if Trump tries to overturn the results of the midterm elections while ignoring court orders meant to stop that?
“I have such a hard time believing that would happen,” Fogel said. “But I think you have to consider the possibility that it might.”
Fogel and Jones saw two off-ramps for that kind of chaos.
For Fogel, it depends on “how much integrity” Trump’s Republican allies in Congress will show if he tries to defy court orders. Will Congress step in? “That’s the big question,” he said.
For Jones, he recalls the consequences that Trump’s attorneys faced for their actions in 2020. One big example: Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who led Trump’s 2020 legal challenges, was disbarred in 2024 for actions he took in that effort.
“Lawyers are going to have to think hard about whether they want to jeopardize, as we call in the trade, their ticket to practice law,” Jones warned. “I think lawyers are likely to be much more circumspect about diving into some of these potentially ill-considered cases because of the experiences in past elections.”
Follow USA TODAY columnist Chris Brennan on Bluesky, @bychrisbrennan.bsky.social, and on X, @ByChrisBrennan. Sign up for his weekly newsletter, Translating Politics, here.
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Tornado warning canceled in Burlington County, New Jersey, as severe storms hit Philadelphia region
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A tornado warning in Burlington County, New Jersey, was canceled Tuesday night as severe storms hit the Philadelphia region.
A severe thunderstorm watch for the Philadelphia region expired, but some severe thunderstorm warnings remain in effect for parts of the Delaware Valley.
Some of those storms will have heavy rainfall, gusty winds and frequent lightning. Heavy rain, damaging winds, hail, lightning, and even an isolated tornado are possible.
We are not yet at the point where you can shut down the air conditioning. In fact, it will likely be running quite a bit in the coming days.
NEXT big weather changes
The heat and storm chances will continue Wednesday and Thursday.
Storms will form each day and generally move from the northwest to the southeast as they ride around a large ridge of high pressure to the south.
Atmospheric conditions will be in place for severe storms at some point each day, but mainly through the afternoon and evening time frame.
All weather threats are possible across most of the region each day.
The ridge will slowly sink southward. By Thursday, a strong cold front will be able to cross the area and looks to start to push the threat for severe weather to the south, but it still includes Philadelphia and areas south.
The NEXT Weather team will be monitoring atmospheric conditions, and we’ll keep you updated with timing and impact throughout the week.
The good news is that the unsettled pattern looks to begin breaking down by Friday to make way for a relatively nice first weekend of September with highs near 80 degrees under partly cloudy skies and lower humidity levels.
Here’s your 7-day forecast:
Tuesday: NEXT Weather Alert for storms/heat. High 92
Wednesday: NEXT Weather Alert for storms. High 84, Low 73
Thursday: NEXT Weather Alert for storms/heat. High 90, Low 72
Friday: Showers south. High 87, Low 73
Saturday: Partly cloudy. High 82, Low 68
Sunday: Mostly sunny. High 79, Low 65
Monday: Mostly sunny. High 80, Low 61
Get the latest weather info on the CBS News Philadelphia app.
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‘Wheel of Fortune’ Announcer Jim Thornton Suspended
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‘Wheel of Fortune’
Announcer Jim Thornton Suspended
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Updated
Jim Thornton — the longtime “Wheel of Fortune” announcer — has been suspended by Sony Pictures Television Studios … TMZ has learned.
The studio tells TMZ … “We have recently been made aware of allegations concerning Jim Thornton. He has been suspended from Wheel of Fortune and we are recasting while we conduct a thorough investigation.”
Sony Pictures Television did not provide a reason for his suspension from the show.
However, we’ve learned the alleged incident arose while Thornton was on a commercial flight back in May, and a passenger complained to a flight attendant about Thornton.
Sources with direct knowledge tell us the pilot called ahead to have law enforcement meet Thornton when they arrived at the gate.
We’re told officers questioned Thornton — who was wearing a ‘Wheel’ jacket at the time — but he was eventually released.
American Airlines tells us, “On May 14, American Airlines Flight 1276 was met by law enforcement upon arrival at Los Angeles International Airport following concerns reported by a customer onboard.”
Thornton joined ‘WoF’ in 2011 after the death of longtime announcer Charlie O’Donnell — who was with the show from 1975 to 1980 and 1989 to 2010.
While mostly heard and not seen on the program, Thornton did host one segment of a 2023 program when one of the contestants — a woman named Sarah Ward — wanted to meet him. Pat Sajak, then the host of the show, served as an announcer for the round.
Thornton also served as an announcer briefly on “The Price Is Right,” “The Soup,” and “The Cleveland Show.” He also lent his voice to Pixar for the classic animated movie “Monsters, Inc.” … serving as a commercial announcer in the flick.
We’ve reached out to Thornton … so far, no word back.
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