NBA Playoff picture: Updating the West and East bracket if season ended today

With one month remaining before the start of the 2024 NBA Playoffs, we take a look at how the brackets currently look like in the Western and Eastern Conference.

Just like that, there's only one month left in the 2023-24 NBA regular season. Over this final month of the season, more than half of the league is still trying to situation themselves when it comes to playoff seeding. Every team has anywhere between 15-18 games before the start of the playoffs and the final few weeks of the season will have a huge impact on how the playoff bracket will end up looking.

As we head into the final stretch of the season, let's take a look at how the playoff bracket would look if the season ended today, or how the bracket looks with one month remaining in the regular season.

The Western Conference playoff bracket

In the Western Conference, the top 4 seeds are pretty much locked in. There could still be some shuffling amongst them, but the Oklahoma City Thunder, Denver Nuggets, Minnesota Timberwolves, and LA Clippers are likely going to be the top 4 seeds in some order or another. After that, that's where the true intrigue falls.

The 5-10 seeds are just separated by five games. There's just a 1.5 game difference between the fifth and eighth seed. With one month of the regular season left, here's how the West bracket looks at the moment:

1. Denver Nuggets (46-20)
2. Oklahoma City Thunder (45-20)
3. Minnesota Timberwolves (45-21)
4. LA Clippers (41-23)
5. New Orleans Pelicans (39-26)
6. Sacramento Kings (38-27)
7. Phoenix Suns (38-27)
8. Dallas Mavericks (38-28)
9. Los Angeles Lakers (36-31)
10. Golden State Warriors (34-31)

The race out West is not yet settled and every team still has something to play for with one month left in the regular season. This is something that NBA Commissioner Adam Silver has to be pretty happy about.

The Eastern Conference playoff bracket

1. Boston Celtics (51-14)
2. Cleveland Cavaliers (42-24)
3. Milwaukee Bucks (42-24)
4. New York Knicks (38-27)
5. Orlando Magic (38-28)
6. Philadelphia 76ers (36-29)
7. Indiana Pacers (37-30)
8. Miami Heat (35-30)
9. Chicago Bulls (32-34)
10. Atlanta Hawks (29-36)

As is the case in the West, the 10 teams that are going to qualify for the postseason in the Eastern Conference have pretty much separated themselves. The Boston Celtics have the No. 1 seed on lock and will soon clinch homecourt advantage through the NBA Finals. But aside from the Cleveland Cavaliers and Milwaukee Bucks, who are fighting for the No. 2 seed, there is very much still plenty of uncertainty when it comes to the seeding.

The fourth seed and eighth seed are separated by just three games in the loss column. Over the final month of the season, you'd have to imagine that teams are going to be shuffling up and down the standings up until the final day of the season.

While the 20 teams that are going to qualify for the postseason have separated themselves from the rest of the league, there is plenty of seeding that still needs to be determined over the final month of the regular season.