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ESPN Senior Writer- Tim Bontemps is a senior NBA writer for ESPN.com who covers the league and what's impacting it on and off the court, including trade deadline intel, expansion and his MVP Straw Polls. You can find Tim alongside Brian Windhorst and Tim MacMahon on The Hoop Collective podcast.
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ESPN Senior Writer- ESPN.com NBA writer since 2010
- Covered Cleveland Cavs for seven years
- Author of two books
The sprint toward the NBA playoffs is fully underway.
With the trade deadline, All-Star break and buyout deadline for playoff eligibility all in the rearview, teams can now shift their focus to improving postseason seeding, escaping the play-in mix or simply getting in at all.
That's especially true in the Western Conference, where 12 teams can realistically make a run for at least a play-in spot -- a number that would have been 13 before Victor Wembanyama's season-ending diagnosis of deep vein thrombosis in his right shoulder -- and several teams believe they are legitimate contenders to win the West.
In our weekly look around the NBA, we'll dive into a bunch of those teams, from the state of the Los Angeles Lakers and Denver Nuggets and their viability as contenders, to recent defensive struggles for the Oklahoma City Thunder and whether the Portland Trail Blazers can pull off a miraculous run to the playoffs.
But any leaguewide look has to begin in Dallas, where on Monday things went from bad to unimaginable when Kyrie Irving suffered a season-ending knee injury.
Jump to a section:
Scouts, execs on Mavs' next moves
Are Lakers' and Warriors' runs for real?
Westbrook's playoff impact for Denver
Are teams finding a flaw in the Thunder?
Look who's crashing the West play-in
