NBA dynasties are dead, parity is king, and if the 2025 playoffs have taught us anything, it’s to expect the unexpected. The NBA will have a different champion for the seventh straight year, something that has never happened in league history. Commissioner Adam Silver sought to create parity by implementing rule changes in the new Collective Bargaining Agreement, and it’s working more effectively than anyone could have anticipated.
There are four teams left standing in the 2025 NBA Playoffs, and none of them have won a championship since the NBA/ABA merger in 1976. The New York Knicks face the Indiana Pacers in a rematch of the 2000 Eastern Conference Finals, while the Oklahoma City Thunder and Minnesota Timberwolves square-off in the West. The Knicks are the only franchise to ever hang a championship banner among the four teams remaining, and that was way back in 1973.
All four of these teams really feel like they have a chance to win it all. We picked Thunder over Celtics in the 2025 NBA Finals at the start of the playoffs. So much for that. Here’s a new set of predictions as the conference finals get underway.
Indiana Pacers vs. New York Knicks
The Knicks beat the Pacers 2-1 in the regular season series by a margin of +27 through the three games. One of those wins came with Myles Turner out for Indiana, while another came with Andrew Nembhard sidelined. It feels silly to draw too many conclusions from the regular season when so much about Indiana’s play has changed after a slow start. The Pacers began the year 9-14 overall, but closed the regular season on a 41-18 kick that extends to 49-20 if you include the playoffs.
The big question in this series is if the Knicks’ offense can keep pace with Indiana’s high-powered attack. New York has posted a 110.7 offensive rating so far in the playoffs, while the Pacers are at 117.3. The Knicks’ defense has been slightly better than the Pacers’ in the playoffs with a 110.6 defensive rating compared to 111.9 for Indiana, but trying to slow down Indiana presents unique challenges.
It’s easy to distill this series down to Tyrese Haliburton vs. Jalen Brunson. The star point guards each do so much for their teams, and both are absolute superstars in crunch-time. Haliburton does his best work as a passer by pushing the pace and hitting teammates with crosscourt passes while avoiding turnovers. Brunson is almost unstoppable scoring in isolations. I’d expect Brunson to guard Nembhard, and Haliburton to defend Josh Hart or Mikal Bridges for most of the series, but each star will matchup hunt the other when they can. Whatever Knicks starter has Haliburton on him has to crash the offensive glass like crazy.
The push and pull of transition defense vs. offensive rebounding will be fascinating in this series. The Knicks like to attack the offensive glass, especially with their two-big lineup featuring Mitchell Robinson. New York will go for second chance opportunities, but if they miss the Pacers will be off to the races the other way. Indiana’s signature trait is its ability to push the tempo, and every Knick that goes for an offensive rebound means one less player getting back defensively.
The Knicks player facing the most pressure in this series is Karl-Anthony Towns. The Pacers are an elite two-point shooting team after hitting 56.8 percent of their shots inside the arc in the regular season, which ranked No. 4 in the league. Towns’ shaky rim protection will be tested by Indiana, and he’ll need to stay strong in the paint and avoid silly fouls. Towns also has the potential to bust open the series offensively if he’s at his best. New York needs KAT to get hot and stay hot.
The Knicks’ path to winning this series starts with pounding the offensive glass and hunting Haliburton on the defensive end. New York should feel good about the wing matchups here — OG Anunoby, Mikal Bridges, and Josh Hart vs. Nemhard, Aaron Nesmith, and Pascal Siakam — but there’s no question Indiana has better depth and fresher legs heading into the series. New York has more top-end talent on paper, but Indiana’s role players are playing at a super high level right now, and Haliburton has a special ability to set them up for easy buckets. I’m expecting this to be a classic, but I slightly favor Indiana even with the Knicks holding homecourt advantage.
Prediction: Pacers in 7
Oklahoma City Thunder vs. Minnesota Timberwolves
This season has often felt like one long coronation of the Thunder’s greatness, but of course the playoffs are rarely that easy for such a young team. OKC got pushed to the brink by Denver in the second round, and needed Aaron Gordon to be hobbled by a hamstring injury in Game 7 before they truly looked like the best team in the series. The Wolves never faced such uncertainty in their own second round matchup because they got their injury luck right away. Stephen Curry was limited to 13 minutes total in the series with his own hamstring pull, allowing Minnesota to coast to an easy five-game victory.
The Wolves and Thunder have more in common than some well timed injury luck. Both are led by dynamic young superstar guards in Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Anthony Edwards, both have strong benches full of homegrown pieces, and both primarily stake their identity on their ultra-physical defense. Minnesota had by far the best defense in the league last season. The Thunder had by far the best defense in the league this season. The winner of this series is going to be the favorite in the NBA Finals, and both coaching staffs have plenty of buttons to push while searching for an advantage.
The Thunder’s defense is the ultimate trump card. OKC’s ability to force turnovers is something no other team in the NBA can come close to matching. The Thunder kept Alex Caruso on ice most of the season before unleashing him in the playoffs, and he’s already won multiple games in the postseason. Caruso’s defense was the key to stopping Nikola Jokic in Game 7, and he’s about to get unleashed on Julius Randle. Caruso always did a good job slowing down Randle when he was in Chicago and Randle was in New York, and that’s something OKC can go to to shut off Minnesota’s best secondary scorer.
The Wolves still have Anthony Edwards at the controls, and he’s shown major growth as a decision-maker in this postseason. OKC is well-equipped to defend him with Lu Dort, Cason Wallace, and Jalen Williams each taking turns. The Thunder can speed up even the best opposing handlers, and they are going to test Edwards’ patience. The Wolves have been a high turnover team all year, and that makes the Thunder an especially bad matchup for them. When OKC forces takeaways at their usual level, the opposition has no chance.
The Wolves also have plenty of strong defenders to throw to Gilgeous-Alexander while boasting the game’s best rim protector behind them in Rudy Gobert. SGA is going to see Jaden McDaniels, Edwards, and his cousin Nickeil Alexander-Walker throughout this series. Minnesota prefers to play drop coverage against the pick-and-roll with Gobert, but Denver’s zone was so effective last round that they should try it out themselves. Jalen Williams likely can’t be any worse than he was against the Nuggets after finishing with horrible 41.5 percent true shooting for the series. Chet Holmgren didn’t have a great series either against Denver, and his matchup with Randle will be a fascinating showdown of length vs. strength.
The reality for the Thunder is that Williams and Holmgren can struggle and it doesn’t really matter as long as they keep forcing turnovers like this. If one of the two co-stars can step up each night and the OKC role players hit their open threes, it’s going to be hard to score enough against the Thunder defense to actually beat them four times. Minnesota has to shoot a super high percentage from the corners, and Edwards is going to have to out-play SGA for the Wolves to have a chance. Don’t count on it. The Thunder already survived what felt like their hardest series, and now they’re ready to get back to the NBA Finals for the first time since the Durant-Westbroook-Harden era.
Prediction: Thunder in 6
2025 NBA Finals matchup prediction: Oklahoma City Thunder vs. Indiana Pacers
