This NBA season, both conferences appear to be incredibly competitive, as we could see any number of teams come out on top in the East and the West. Here, we look at the NBA conference championship odds for both conferences and highlight the teams that have the best shots to reach the NBA Finals this year.
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2023-2024 NBA Eastern Conference Odds
Looking at this season’s NBA championship odds, the Boston Celtics are the clear favorites to win the Eastern Conference Finals among the teams remaining in the conference. Boston has been the best team in the NBA all season long, finishing the regular season with the best record in the league. They got through the Miami Heat in five games in the first round of playoffs and are not expected to encounter much resistance until the NBA Finals.
With that said, there are some concerns about the ability of the Celtics to stay locked in during the Eastern Conference playoffs. The Celtics are so much better than the New York Knicks, Indiana Pacers, and Cleveland Cavaliers, which has resulted in some lapses in concentration at times in the playoffs so far. They will need to clean those up to avoid being upset by any of the teams remaining in the East.
Of the non-Boston teams left in the East, the New York Knicks are being given the best chance to make the NBA Finals. But injuries could make things tough on them if they face the Celtics in the conference finals. Meanwhile, the Indiana Pacers and Cleveland Cavaliers have work to do if they are going to reach the Eastern Conference Finals, let alone win them.
2023-2024 NBA Western Conference Odds
In the Western Conference, the Denver Nuggets made it to the NBA Finals last season, dominating the rest of the West from the top-seed position. Nikola Jokic looked like an MVP once again, and he lived up to expectations in the playoffs, unlike the actual league MVP Joel Embiid. Jokic has won the MVP in the 2023-24 season, his third career MVP, but the Nuggets are no longer favorites to win the Western Conference.
That honor belongs to the Minnesota Timberwolves, who are off to a great start in the postseason after their first-round sweep of the Phoenix Suns. The size and defense of the Timberwolves has been too much for opponents to overcome so far in the playoffs. And with Anthony Edwards emerging as one of the faces of the league, Minnesota could end up dethroning the defending champs in the West en route to the Finals.
Outside of the Nuggets and Wolves, the Oklahoma City Thunder and Dallas Mavericks are in the middle of a series to determine the other participant in this year’s Western Conference Finals. That series features the other two NBA MVP finalists from this year in OKC’s Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Dallas’ Luka Doncic. But the supporting casts of these two teams could end up deciding what should be a competitive series between two teams that could easily make the NBA Finals themselves when the dust settles out West.