Can Regular Season Maps Be Relevant in the NBA Playoffs?

The Houston Rockets, the second-seeded team in the Western Conference, have already secured a playoff spot since early April 2025. Meanwhile, the Golden State Warriors struggled to win the seventh seed via the play-in route three days ago. Who is favored when the two teams meet in the first round? The answer is the Warriors.

Major media outlets, including The Athletic and ESPN, predict the Warriors will win 4-2 in a best-of-seven series. The Rockets' higher seeding status doesn't seem to mean much. After all, the Rockets earned it through hard work over a six-month, 82-game regular season.

There is a logical reason behind it. The Warriors are favored not only because they have four-time champion megastar guard Stephen Curry. The prediction also comes from the team's performance trend over the past few months, especially after the trade deadline in early February. The NBA power map has shifted since then.

The team's strength ahead of the playoffs which will start on Sunday (4/20/2025) morning WIB, is different from when it was at the beginning of the season. Many star exchanges occurred in February. One of them was the Warriors who got veteran forward Jimmy Butler from the Miami Heat. The trend of the team coached by Steve Kerr has increased drastically with Butler.

Any team has a chance when I'm on it. That goes for Steph too.

In the Butler era, the Warriors recorded a record of 23 wins-8 losses in the regular season and an additional win during the play-in. The winning record reached 75 percent, much better than the record throughout the season (58.5 percent). If Butler had come since the beginning of the season, they might have surpassed the Rockets' record (63.4 percent).

Butler has repeatedly proven that being a top seed means nothing. He led the Heat to the finals in the 2022-2023 season while only being the eighth or lowest seed in the Eastern Conference. "Any team has a chance when I'm in it. That also applies to Steph," Butler explained.

Not only the standings, but the record of encounters in the regular season is also no longer relevant. An example is the duel in the first round between the Los Angeles Lakers (third seed) and the Minnesota Timberwolves (sixth seed). The Timberwolves lead 2-1 against LeBron James and his teammates before the saga of the transfer of Slovenian megastar Luka Doncic.

However, that record means nothing. Doncic is known as the Timberwolves’ “tamer.” He, along with the Dallas Mavericks, eliminated the Timberwolves from the conference finals last season (4-1). Timberwolves’ center Rudy Gobert also always had a hard time when he had to face the player nicknamed “Luka Magic.”

Lakers Head Coach, J. J. Redick stated that Doncic is increasingly challenged by the fact that Gobert is a four-time NBA Defensive Player of the Year. "He (Doncic) believes that no one in the world can guard him. He takes the upcoming matchup (against Gobert and the Timberwolves) seriously," he said.

An NBA season can be likened to a marathon. Half the journey is the regular season, the rest is the playoffs. In a marathon, there is no winner for the runner who finishes the first half of the race. It's the same in the NBA. Therefore, teams save their best abilities for the last half of the competition.

The regular season and the playoffs are different worlds. The approach to play changes significantly. In the regular season, teams have to rotate their squads very well to cope with the tight schedule. Squad depth plays a big role. Coaches use 10-12 players. Stars are kept to 35 minutes.

In the playoffs, every team maximizes its best weapons. Usually, coaches only trust eight players to play for 48 minutes. Stars usually play an average of 40 minutes, sometimes more if the game is tight. As for James, who was 39 years old in the playoffs last season, he played an average of 40.8 minutes.

These differentiating factors inspire the emergence of alter characters of the players called playoff mode. When in that mode, they seem to compete using survival instincts. The only choices are to win or go home. That is also what makes mentality and experience have a big influence.

It is not without reason that a player like “King James” who has reached the finals ten times and won the league four times, can always perform great in the playoffs. He has been forged in 287 playoff games or the most in NBA history. Every victory increases his confidence, while every defeat strengthens his mentality.

“I missed the playoffs twice, lost four finals. I started to think it would be better to not play in the playoffs if I lost the finals. It wouldn’t hurt as much. But then I remembered how much fun it was to compete in the playoffs, every round,” James said after losing the finals in 2015.

James' enjoyment outweighs the fear of pressure. That's what's doubted about inexperienced players. Oklahoma City Thunder guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, for example. Shai did make the Thunder the best team in the Western Conference with a brilliant 68-14 record. However, his experience has not been proven in the playoffs.

Shai has only played in four playoff series in his career, totaling 23 games. The furthest the 26-year-old has gone is as far as the conference semifinals. The question is, can he lift the Thunder, who are the youngest team in the league and have only made the playoffs twice in the last five seasons?

Imagine if you were lost in the wilderness and encountered two individuals. The first person appears athletic and young, but is unfamiliar with the terrain that needs to be traversed. The second person is old and frail, yet hunts in the forest every day. Who would you trust to lead you out of the woods?

Experience is very important, that's why many great players only managed to win after seasons of failing in the playoffs. Starting from Chicago Bulls legend Michael Jordan, James, to the latest Boston Celtics star Jayson Tatum. Not many are like Curry, able to win with very little experience in the playoffs.

It doesn't happen often, but it has happened. The Thunder, led by Shai, will try to repeat Curry's story with the Warriors. They will look for relevance between their seeding in the regular season standings and their performance in the playoffs. The Thunder's winning record, 82.9 percent, is too special to not achieve.

Only six clubs throughout history, besides the Thunder, have been able to record a winning percentage of at least 82.9 percent in the regular season. All of them advanced to the conference finals, and four teams succeeded in becoming champions. The proof of the regular season's fortune now rests entirely in the hands of the Thunder. (AP)