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A little early to talk about much about it but it is coming.

Does Durant come back? He might be tempted, especially if the 1st round series is against the Bucks.

Whoever is 3rd seed in East will face a pretty good 6th seed in the Pacers.

Sixers - Heat matchup, assuming it happens, will probably have intensity / theatrics.

2-7 in west could shuffle a lot.

Sixers falling. Could make for an unexpectedly tough first round. For them. And maybe other team. Sixers terrible on road though.

BRef gives Spurs about 1 chance in 7 to make playoffs. Blazers, 1 in 6.

Will teams tank to get to 6th/7th seed to avoid the Lakers bracket? And will Utah tank to avoid Houston in Rd 1 if it comes down to it?

Mavs are weak at home, strong on road. And... in 7th now.

Celtics might face Pacers or Sixers in first round. 0-1 vs. Pacers. 1-3 against Sixers. Fwiw.

Injuries a bigger concern in the top of the East than the West.

The first tier of playoff contenders appears to be Bucks, Raptors, Celtics, Lakers, Clippers. Celtics are probably weakest in tier 1.

The second tier is mainly defined by net rating and record against top 10 to me. I excluded Mavs from tier 1, though it is a close call, mainly because of weak defense, but that might be prejudice. They are 6th on BRef's title projections.

Others have some prospects but lesser. Sixers with best home record but very weak on road. Heat also weak on road. Clippers not nearly as strong against West as Lakers. Also nothing that special on road, as are the Rockets and Nuggets.

Bucks vs. Lakers is most likely finals. Either could slip or just get beat but probably not.

13 teams given any chance to win finals by BRef. 8 over 1% chance. The team in tier 2A are Mavs, Rockets and Jazz. Maybe Mavs are tier 1. Perhaps that will clarify if / when regular season returns. 6-4 in the last 10 left the assignment a little ambiguous. The 5 given below 1% chance might get hot and / or get a favorable matchup or two but it would be a rare year if such a team went all the way over the higher ranked.

One could use BRef's projections to limit tier 1 to just 3 teams. I opted to be a little looser. Raptors are the returning champs with a seemingly great coach. Celtics... I could go either way. At the moment, I decided I didn't quite have a strong enough case to exclude from tier 1.

Overall the Celtics rate well on offense & defense; but I remain concerned about their meh shot quality and shooting / scoring efficiency. I think these things will bite them somewhere along the way.

What might qualify as a notable surprise in the playoffs, at least to the mainstream? A really strong Raptors campaign? Early exits by Nuggets, Heat, Rockets and / or Jazz? A second round loss by Lakers and / or Celtics? What "surprise" do you give a fairly high chance of happening?

Anyone beating the Bucks in the East would be a shock to me. Here's a list of teams who had a bigger lead in SRS over the second best team in their conference in the entire history of the NBA:

1997 Bulls
1996 Bulls
1992 Bulls
1986 Lakers
1976 Warriors
1971 Bucks
1970 Knicks
1965 Celtics
1962 Celtics
1960 Celtics
1960 St Louis Hawks
1959 St Louis Hawks

Only 3 of those teams didn't make the Finals (86 Lakers, 76 Warriors, 59 Hawks). Every team that made the Finals won it all except the 1960 Hawks who lost to the equally dominant Celtics that year.

While each of those teams had a bigger lead over the second best team in the conference it was hardly ever substantially more than Milwaukee's current lead of 4.56.

I don't really see any of the other contenders in the East having a second playoff gear like the Cavs often did with LeBron when they were not always great in the regular season and then flipped a switch in the playoffs. So I'd have a hard time believing anyone beats Milwaukee if they're healthy.

I suppose the Nuggets losing in the first round would come as the biggest surprise to a casual fan since they're currently the 3 seed, but they're only 6th in SRS and probably not quite as good as their record indicates.

Bucks won 89% against East by almost 14 pts per game. 73% against West by an average of 7.5 points.

Best record against top 10 but only 8-8 against two way strong teams (upper thirds / by 82games). 1-1 against Celtics, Lakers and Jazz. Lakers with the best record against top 10 of these 3. Lakers and Celtics around 60% win against two way strong teams but only about 50% against all good defenses.

Just 2-4 in March overall. Disruption may hurt or help?

Bucks probably get taken to 6-7 games by someone (if played normally). Maybe more than one.

Last playoffs, Bucks were just average on 3pt fg%, own turnovers and fouls committed. Against the Raptors the 3pt fg% and fouls committed were big issues. Who is good (and / or lucky) on opponent 3pt fg%? Lakers, Clippers, Celtics, Raptors. Drawing FTs? Clippers and Jazz.

The 5 teams named above have some chance. Probably not anyone else in same tier against Bucks.

LeBron and Davis did alright or better individually against Bucks in regular season meetings. Lots of trouble against Celtics and Raptors. But, yeah, small samples.

Celtics pretty highly dependent on Tatum. On career splits, the Raptors have really contained him. Sixers held him down moderately. Bucks only mildly. But holding him even some is worth noting and could be decisive.

He has been a strong defender against Sixers, just average against Bucks and Raptors.

Teams change, players can change but this is where he has been in regular seaaon. In playoffs he has a few more meh to bad games than great games against Sixers and Bucks.

Some context on Bucks recent performance:

All four of those losses were on the road (MIA, LAL, PHX, DEN). MIA and DEN games were b2b games. There won't be any road or b2b games in playoffs.

Giannis missed the PHX and DEN games and they rested Middleton, Brook Lopez, DiVincenzo for the DEN game.

Here are the teams with an SRS of at least 9 in the regular season:
Only 3 of those teams didn't make the finals. 2013 OKC lost Westbrook after 2 playoff games. 1972 Bucks lost in WCF to Lakers who are also on this list. 2016 Spurs would have had to go through 2016 GSW if they had beaten OKC.

Bucks probably won't have to face both the Celtics and Raptors unless Miami overtakes Boston for the 3 seed. So the Celtics and Raptors will most likely have to duke it out with each other for the right to face the Bucks. Celtics are far from a lock to even make the second round if they end up facing the Sixers considering the Sixers have beaten them 3 out of 4 times this season.