The Athletic: Thunder and Spurs favored
- Oklahoma City and San Antonio entered the West semifinals as clear favorites over the Lakers and Timberwolves as the NBA’s second round opened on May 4-5. (nytimes.com) - The split is sharpest in the East: ESPN’s panel went 7-4 for Knicks over 76ers, while giving Thunder a sweep of expert support. (espn.com) - That says a lot about this bracket — the West looks top-heavy, while Boston’s exit made the East much messier. (espn.com)
The NBA’s second round is here, and the shape of the bracket is suddenly pretty clear. In the West, this looks like a two-team lane for the Thunder and Spurs. In the (nytimes.com)s favored, but how differently people see these four series. (nytimes.com) the conference semifinals with the cleanest résumé left in the field. The Thunder were 64-18 in the regular seaso(espn.com)oss-up and more like a test of whether anyone can really drag OKC off its preferred style. (espn.com) ### Why are people so confident in OKC over the Lakers? Basically, the signals all point the same way. The Athletic framed Oklahoma City as(nytimes.com)s. The Lakers got through Houston in six, which is solid, but that’s not the same thing as looking like the conference’s most stable team. (nytimes.com) ### What about the Spurs? San Antonio is in almost the same bucket. The Spurs finished 62-20, handled Portland in five games, and now fa(espn.com)ut the bigger point is that San Antonio doesn’t look like a cute young story anymore — it looks like a contender people are comfortable backing. (si.com) ### So why isn’t the East like that? Because the East got weird fast. Boston blew a 3-1 lead and lost to Philadelphia, which cracked open the whole side of the bracket. Detroi(nytimes.com)d one. (espn.com) ### Why is Knicks-76ers the swing series? Because this is the one people cannot agree on. The Knicks are the higher seed, but the 76ers just pulled off the biggest upset of the first round by knocking out Boston. ESPN’s panel leaned New York 7-4, while other prediction roun(si.com) series is really about trust — trust in Jalen Brunson and New York’s depth, or trust in Joel Embiid and Philadelphia’s ceiling. (espn.com) ### Is Pistons-Cavaliers just background noise? Not reall(espn.com), which is a lean, not a landslide. That fits the broader East story — more volatility, less certainty, and way more room for a long series. (espn.com) ### What changed from last week? Last week, the bracket still had some order. Now the West looks concentrated at the top, while the East looks blown open by Boston’s collapse and two separate 3-1 comebacks in the same round — something ESPN noted had never happened before. That’s a huge shift in how this postseason feels. (espn.com) ### Bottom line? The easy read is that the Thunder and Spurs are favored. The better read is why. The West still looks ruled by its top seeds. The East looks like one long argument. (nytimes.com)
