The Playins are over and congratulations to The Lakers who looked dead and buried after 15 games. They join their LA rivals The Clippers in returning to the postseason after missing out last year. Special mention too for The Sacramento Kings who are finally back in the playoffs after a long drought stretching back to 2005-6!<\/p>\n
In the East, it’s nice to see the Knicks back in after missing out last year they look on the up but it could be a few years yet before they are genuine contenders. You have to go back to 1973 for their last finals win!<\/p>\n
Anyway here is how we see round one panning out…<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
E1 Milwaukee Bucks v <\/strong>E8 Miami Heat<\/strong><\/p>\n Prediction Milwaukee 4-1<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n E2 Boston Celtics v <\/strong>E7 Atlanta Hawks<\/strong><\/p>\n Prediction Celtics 4-2<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n E3 Philadelphia 76ers v <\/strong>E6 Brooklyn Nets<\/strong><\/p>\n Prediction 76ers 4-2<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n E4 Cleveland Cavaliers v <\/strong>E5 NY Knicks<\/strong><\/p>\n Prediction Knicks 4-3<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n W1 Denver Nuggets v W8 Minnesota Timberwolves<\/strong><\/p>\n Prediction Nuggets 4-0<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n W2 Memphis Grizzlies v <\/strong>W7 LA Lakers<\/strong><\/p>\n Prediction Lakers 4-3<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n W3 Sacramento Kings v <\/strong>W6 Golden State Warriors<\/strong><\/p>\n Prediction Kings 4-2<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n W4 Phoenix Suns v <\/strong>W5 LA Clippers<\/strong><\/p>\n Prediction Suns 4-3<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n This would set up the following clashes…<\/p>\n <\/p>\n E1 Milwaukee v <\/strong>E6\u00a0NY Knicks<\/strong><\/p>\n E2 Boston v E3 Philadelphia<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n W1 Denver v <\/strong>W7\u00a0LA Lakers<\/strong><\/p>\n W3 Sacramento\u00a0 v <\/strong>W4 Phoenix<\/strong><\/p>\n That would put pay to our pre-season prediction which was for the Clippers to finally get off the mark.\u00a0 We did tip the 76ers to be their opponents in the final though so we could still be half right!<\/p>\n You can see our pre-season predictions for the Eastern Conference here <\/a>– and our Western predictions<\/a> too – if you really must!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Playins are over and congratulations to The Lakers who looked dead and buried after 15 games. They join their LA rivals The Clippers in returning to the postseason after missing out last year. Special mention too for The Sacramento Kings who are finally back in the playoffs after a long drought stretching back to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":115792,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,1814,22],"tags":[2048,1636],"class_list":["post-116267","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-eastern-conference","category-nba-playoffs","category-western-conference","tag-2022-nba-predictions","tag-nba-playoffs"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fiveminutesspare.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116267","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fiveminutesspare.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fiveminutesspare.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fiveminutesspare.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fiveminutesspare.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=116267"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.fiveminutesspare.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116267\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":116271,"href":"https:\/\/www.fiveminutesspare.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116267\/revisions\/116271"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fiveminutesspare.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/115792"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fiveminutesspare.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=116267"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fiveminutesspare.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=116267"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fiveminutesspare.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=116267"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Western Conference Playoffs<\/h1>\n
Eastern Conference Semis<\/h2>\n
Western Conference Semis<\/h2>\n