NBA Playoff Predictions

The NBA Playoffs start today, with 16 teams vying for the title of NBA Champion. While there may technically be 16 teams still alive, how many of those teams have a realistic chance of winning the title, and how many actually have a good chance? I've crunched the numbers for every game for the entire season, factoring in home court advantage, strength of schedule, and momentum, then figured out the odds of any potential matchup and series length to determine which teams you should be watching for this year. In general, the favorites should do pretty well, but there could be some surprises. Here are my odds for each team advancing and my predictions for which teams will win each series:

Odds of Winning First Round

(1) Miami over (8) Milwaukee - 96.2%
(1) Oklahoma City over (8) Houston - 84.4%
(2) New York over (7) Boston - 84.1%
(3) Denver over (6) Golden State - 78.9%
(2) San Antonio over (7) LA Lakers - 76.3%
(3) Indiana over (6) Atlanta - 75.7%
(4) Brooklyn over (5) Chicago - 69.0%
(4) LA Clippers over (5) Memphis - 65.0%

Odds of Making Conference Finals

Miami - 82.0%
Oklahoma City - 61.8%
New York - 54.6%
Denver - 46.4%
San Antonio - 40.8%
Indiana - 35.1%
LA Clippers - 23.8%
Brooklyn - 13.8%
Memphis - 9.3%
Golden State - 6.9%
Atlanta - 6.2%
LA Lakers - 5.8%
Houston - 5.1%
Boston - 4.1%
Chicago - 3.2%
Milwaukee - 1.0%

Odds of Making NBA Finals

Miami - 60.8%
Oklahoma City - 47.1%
New York - 20.6%
Denver - 18.0%
San Antonio - 13.8%
LA Clippers - 13.2%
Indiana - 11.3%
Brooklyn - 5.2%
Memphis - 4.1%
Houston - 1.9%
Golden State - 1.0%

Odds of Winning Championship

Oklahoma City - 32.7%
Miami - 31.6%
Denver - 9.3%
LA Clippers - 7.1%
San Antonio - 6.4%
New York - 6.2%
Indiana - 2.8%
Memphis - 1.7%

Odds of Various Finals Matchups

2 Former ROY's - 61.6%
2 Scoring Leaders - 50.2%
2012 rematch (Heat vs. Thunder) - 28.6%
2 Former Sixth Men of the Year - 18.2%
2 Former Finals MVP's - 17.0%
2 Former MVP's - 9.1%
2 Teams with no championships (Nets or Pacers vs. Clippers, Grizzlies or Nuggets) - 5.8%
2 Former MIP's - 3.1%
2 Lower Seeds - 0.2%
2 Former DPOY's - 0.2%
2 Teams that Missed 2012 Playoffs - 0.2%
2010 rematch (Lakers vs. Celtics) (AKA Rebounding Leaders) - 0.004%

Predictions

Upset picks are in italics.
Regular season results in parentheses.

First Round

Heat over Bucks in 4 (Heat 3-1)
Knicks over Celtics in 5 (Knicks 3-1)
Pacers over Hawks in 5 (Tied 2-2)
Nets over Bulls in 6 (Chicago 3-1)

Thunder over Rockets in 5 (Thunder 2-1)
Spurs over Lakers in 5 (Spurs 2-1)
Nuggets over Warriors in 5 (Nuggets 3-1)
Clippers over Grizzlies in 6 (Clippers 3-1)

Second Round

Heat over Nets in 5 (Heat 3-0)
Knicks over Pacers in 7 (Tied 2-2)
Thunder over Clippers in 6 (Thunder 3-0)
Nuggets over Spurs in 7 (Tied 2-2)

Conference Finals

Heat over Knicks in 6 (Knicks 3-1)
Thunder over Nuggets in 6 (Nuggets 3-1)

NBA Finals

Thunder over Heat in 7 (Heat 2-0)

There you go. It looks very likely that we will see a rematch of last season's Finals, which has happened 12 times previously in 66 seasons, but only once in the last 23 years, when Utah and Chicago met in 1997 and 1998. I plan to update my odds again after each team has played its first 2 games, so watch for that next week and see what changes come with those results.