NBA playoff sleepers: Why Knicks, Mavericks and Pelicans are in position to crash the contender party

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It’s just about NBA playoff season and the race for the 2024 title feels relatively wide open. Denver and Boston are clear favorites, but beneath that it’s a free-for-all. We all have opinions on which teams have realistic shots at crashing the contender party, and below I’m going to share mine. 

Teams you will not see: The Lakers, who are probably going to have to win two play-in games just to face the Nuggets in the first round. Ditto for the Warriors. The Clippers are a borderline sleeper as people have forgotten how great they were for a large chunk of this season as they’ve flattened out post-All-Star and Kawhi Leonard has been out, but that’s a high-profile team with three Hall of Famers. Nobody is sleeping on that. Ditto for the Suns, who I assure you are not going anywhere meaningful this postseason. 

The Timberwolves, Thunder and Bucks joined Denver and Boston as my top-five title contenders last week. (I’m already feeling stupid about putting the Bucks on that list.) 

The Sixers could be called a sleeper with Joel Embiid back, but I’m way too cynical to think Embiid can just jump back into the lineup and lead a Finals charge when he’s never been out of the second round to begin with, even if this is as a rested as he’s ever gone into a postseason. The Miami Heat are the very definition of a sleeper, but I’m going to make the mistake I make every year and just say they’re not good enough. 

Having said all that, below are the three teams that I consider to be the biggest sleepers in the upcoming postseason. Here we go. 

Some air went out of the New York balloon with the news that Julius Randle was out for the playoffs. Big name, big team, there’s an instinct to let go of the highest hopes for what was starting to feel like the makings of a dream season. Not so fast. 

Yes, the Knicks, who had won 12 of 14 preceding Randle’s injury, have barely been a .500 team since he went out (17-15). But OG Anunoby has played in only six of those games 32 games, and the Knicks have won five of them. 

With Anunoby back and…

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Source link : https://www.cbssports.com/nba/news/nba-playoff-sleepers-why-knicks-mavericks-and-pelicans-are-in-position-to-crash-the-contender-party/

Author : Brad Botkin

Publish date : 2024-04-11 19:36:03

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