NBA: Predicting the final playoff seeding in the Eastern Conference

Predicting the final playoff seeding for the NBA’s Eastern Conference. 

The NBA’s Eastern Conference. What is usually a perpetual little brother to the Western Conference has become ultimately exciting because of the play-in tournament. The lower seeds in the East are in a real battle and it’s almost impossible how to predict how it will all shake out by the end of the regular season.

Nevertheless, and it’s become pretty clear that there are two tiers in the East right now. There are the contenders consisting of the top three seeds and then there is the rest of the bunch.

The rest is where the logjam comes in. Seeds 4-9 are all by no more than three games. With less than 20 games remaining in the regular season, every game from here on out becomes that much bigger.

We’ll discuss the contenders first, and then predict the final five seeds to round out the “standard” Eastern Conference playoffs.