Three dark horse NBA playoff teams who are built to take down contenders.
While the NBA playoff field will contain 16 teams when the bracket is finally set, there seem to only be three teams that the media talks about as having a true chance of winning a championship —Oklahoma City, Boston, and Cleveland. However, the NBA title picture is rarely as black and white as three times.
Every year, there are dark horses, such as the 2024 Mavericks and the 2023 Heat, that make unexpected playoff runs and eliminate the top contenders in the process. I've outlined the three most likely candidates to do so in the 2025 playoffs.
3. LA Clippers
The LA Clippers are peaking at the right time. They are 10-2 in their last 12 games, with one of the losses coming in a 103-101 dogfight against the Thunder two nights ago. LA is showing that when healthy, they can be dangerous on both ends of the floor. Kawhi Leonard is playing his best basketball of the season, averaging 28 points, 7.8 rebounds, and 3.5 assists in his last six games. Norman Powell returned from injury last week, and Bogdan Bogdanovic has gotten going. Those players have helped lead the Clippers to having the sixth-best offensive rating in March — a sizable step up from the 18th-ranked offensive rating all season.
Defensively, the Clippers have been getting after it all year long. Kris Dunn leads the entire NBA in defensive box plus-minus, and Ivica Zubac has established himself as one of the best anchors in the league — he is second in the league in defensive win shares. Other guys, such as Leonard, Derrick Jones Jr., Ben Simmons, and Amir Coffey, make the Clippers a hassle to play against. All of them have collectively led LA to the third-best defense in the league this season.
Even if LA can't keep up their sixth-best offense, a top-10 offense would still make them very dangerous. There are only three other teams in the league who are in the top ten in both metrics. Seven of the eight teams in the last two seasons that were top ten in both offense and defense went on to win at least one playoff series. If the Clippers can avoid the Thunder in the first round, they are a strong candidate to reach at least round two.