Well, well, well … the NBA Tuesday ideas we expressed a few weeks ago look mildly rough right about now. To recap, we suggested Detroit, Boston, or New York would represent the Eastern Conference in the Finals, eventually, and from the West, we pegged Oklahoma City, San Antonio, or Houston. As the second round has now begun, we see that the Celtics and the Rockets were shown the door, despite their TV-ratings value. The No. 6 and No. 9 markets are now off the table for the NBA’s revenue.

However, that still leaves us with the potential for a Pistons-Knicks matchup in the Eastern Conference Finals and a Thunder-Spurs matchup in the Western Conference Finals. What are the probabilities there? Well, despite their No. 10 standing in the East, sabermetrically speaking, the Philadelphia 76ers are still in it to win it, facing New York in one Eastern semifinal: the Knicks hold a 6.32-point advantage, however, on a neutral court, so we do not expect any more “miracles” from Philly in this postseason.

However, this matchup features Top 5 TV markets, so look for it to go much further than it should, on paper. There’s money to be made with the millions of New York (No. 1) and Philadelphia (No. 5) televisions tuned it. We would be surprised if this was over as quickly as the sabermetrics suggest it should be. After all, this is still the NBA, right? Right. The Knicks have gotten out to a series lead over the 76ers, but we do expect it to go at least six, if not, seven games. Everyone loves an underdog, after all, no?

In the other matchup in the same time zone, we see Detroit (No. 14 TV market) and Cleveland (No. 19) in a matchup that has yet to begin. The Pistons sport a 3.75-point edge on the Cavaliers in this one, but Detroit just got pushed to seven games in the first round against the Orlando Magic (in the No. 15 TV market). Look for this series to definitely go seven games, as well, to maximize revenue. The storyline will be that the Pistons are tired from the first round, although we think that will be a false flag.

Over in the Western Conference, the surprising Minnesota Timberwolves defeated the Denver Nuggets in the first round, the latter’s TV ratings obviously fading in drawing power since the team won the 2023 NBA championship. Now Minnesota (No. 16 market) takes on the Spurs, and the T’Wolves already have a 1-0 series lead on San Antonio (No. 31). Those TV rankings can be deceiving since the latter brings an international audience with it—not to mention a 5.21-point sabermetric edge as well. Hmmm.

Then we have the improbable mathematical series between OKC and the Los Angeles Lakers. The Thunder played in the No. 47 TV market, while L.A. is the No. 2 market. That should explain how the undermanned Lakers—over three points the inferior of the Rockets—managed to top Houston in six games to get here. On paper, OKC is a 9.36-point favorite against Los Angeles, yet with such a disparity between the television draws there, we expect the series to get stretched out … a lot like last year for OKC.

All of this is conjecture, of course, based on past precedent and current data, so we will see what happens. We don’t actually watch these games, either, because we really don’t have a rooting interest in the NBA, to be honest. We cover it out of curiosities like this, and we will see how the results either bear out our hypotheses or not. Either way, the four teams we have left standing from our original six suggestions should win their matchups, at least on paper, so time will tell, again, if we are right or we are wrong, eh?