What to know entering the NBA playoffs, which start Saturday

Here’s ararity: All five teams from one division are going to the NBAplayoffs.

And theypulled that off in a year where a division champion almost didn’tget there.

All fiveteams from the Pacific Division — Sacramento, Phoenix, the LosAngeles Clippers, Golden State and the Los Angeles Lakers — havemade the playoffs, which start Saturday.

But Miami,the champion of the Southeast Division, almost missed out. The Heatgot there Friday night by closing on a 15-1 run to beat Chicago102-91 in the final Eastern Conference play-in game.

Had the Heatlost, it would have been the first time in NBA history that adivision winner wasn’t going to the playoffs.

On the otherend of the spectrum, the whole-division-goes feat had happened onlytwo other times since the NBA went to the six-division,five-teams-in-each format starting with the 2004-05 season.

The CentralDivision did it in 2006, and the Southwest Division pulled it offin 2015. It almost happened in the Northwest Division in 2018 whenDenver missed the playoffs by a game. And the Atlantic Division hada chance to send all its teams this year if Toronto gotten out ofthe play-in tournament.

PLAY IN TOPLAY ON

The play-intournament provided a path for Miami, Minnesota, the Los AngelesLakers and Atlanta to make the playoffs.

And now,they’ll try to go from playing in to playing on.

No team hasmanaged that yet.

Granted,there’s only been three previous versions of a play-in tournament,but no team has gone from the extra round in between the regularseason and playoffs and gotten an actual postseason series win.

In 2020,Portland (which beat Memphis in a one-game play-in round inside therestart bubble) lost 4-1 to the top-seeded Lakers.

In 2021, theLakers (4-2 to Phoenix), Memphis (4-1 to Utah), Boston (4-1 toBrooklyn) and Washington (4-1 to Philadelphia) were all ousted inRound 1.

And lastyear, Minnesota (4-2 to Memphis), New Orleans (4-2 to Phoenix),Atlanta (4-1 to Miami) and Brooklyn (4-0 to Boston) also lost theiropening series after qualifying through the play-in.

2 TO 1

Golden Statedid something unusual last season. It finished second in thePacific Division — and first in the NBA.

That’s aserious break from the norm.

From 2012through 2021, every team to make the NBA Finals did so afterwinning a division championship. The 2011 Dallas Mavericks had beenthe most recent team not to win its division but make the finals;they won the title that season.

The Warriorsdid it last season, also winning the title.

This season’sdivision champions: Boston, Milwaukee, Miami, Denver, Sacramentoand Memphis. History suggests that two of those six teams would bethe wise picks for those forecasting who’ll make the finals.

SEASON OFCOMEBACKS

Playoffsmight not have looked likely for a bunch of teams in the earlygoing of the season.

Philadelphiastarted 0-3, Sacramento started 0-4, Brooklyn was 1-5, Golden Statewas 3-7, the Los Angeles Clippers opened 2-4, Minnesota was 5-8,Miami was 7-11 — and the Los Angeles Lakers were 2-10, a level ofbad start that few teams have been able to overcome.

The Lakersare just the 15th team in NBA history to start 0-5 and make thepostseason. And only four teams were worse than 2-10 after 12 gamesand still made the playoffs. Last season’s New Orleans Pelicansstarted 1-11 and got there, as did the 1967-68 Chicago Bulls and1984-85 Cleveland Cavaliers.

But theundisputed bad-start-and-made-playoffs-anyway kings are the 1996-97Phoenix Suns. They started 0-13, wound up finishing 40-42, held a2-1 series lead over top-seeded Seattle in the best-of-five openinground, then fell in five games.

WINSMILESTONE

Golden Stateteammates Klay Thompson and Draymond Green have both appeared in102 playoff victories.

That’s tiedfor 25th-best all-time, and they could keep climbing the chartsthis spring.

They’recurrently two wins behind Danny Green; three behind Dwyane Wade andDennis Johnson; five behind Bill Russell, Robert Parish andWarriors teammate Andre Iguodala; and six behind No. 18 JohnHavlicek.

If theWarriors win another title and Thompson and Green appear in all 16victories, they’d then have 118 apiece — one fewer than MichaelJordan.

The LosAngeles Lakers’ LeBron James enters these playoffs as the careerleader in postseason wins, with 174. Phoenix’s Kevin Durant needsfive to get to 100, and Warriors guard Stephen Curry has 93.

ON THEROAD

Going “on theroad” in these playoffs will be a relative term in some cases.

By drivingdistance, some of them are pretty close. Only 85 miles or soseparates the arenas used by Golden State and Sacramento, and it’sabout 100 miles between the arenas in Philadelphia andBrooklyn.

Phoenix andthe Los Angeles Clippers play 375 miles apart, while New York andCleveland are separated by 450 miles, which is still no more thanabout an hour by air. The rest of the matchups are a bit longer —it’s 850 miles or so between Minnesota and Denver, 1,100 betweenBoston and Atlanta, almost 1,500 between Miami and Milwaukee andjust over 1,800 between Memphis and the Los Angeles Lakers’ homefloor.

THE WAIT ISOVER

Sacramento’slast playoff game was May 5, 2006. That was 12 Kings coachesago.

A look atsome of the other numbers:

— The Kingsplayed 1,358 games in that span.

— They used184 different players.

— They scored142,294 points, with DeMarcus Cousins having the most in that spanwith 9,894.

— They went515-843.

— There willhave been 1,384 playoff games in the league between Sacramento’slast playoff game and by the time the Kings and Golden State tipoff in Game 1 on Saturday. All 29 other teams played at least 11playoff games in that span; Boston has the most with 201, and theCeltics and Miami have a league-high 108 playoff wins apiece overthat stretch.

INSIDE THESTANDINGS

If the 16playoff teams had their own league this season, with only the gamesagainst one another counting, then the Boston Celtics would befeeling pretty confident right about now.

The Celticshad the best record against fellow playoff qualifiers this season,going 27-15. That just edged out Denver, which went 26-15 againstplayoff-bound teams during the regular season.

Boston’saverage point differential against playoff-bound teams per game isalso better than any other postseason club. The Celtics outscoredplayoff teams, on average, by 5.6 points per game.

The rest ofthe records by playoff qualifiers against one another during theregular season: Milwaukee 26-16, Philadelphia 26-16, Minnesota22-20, Memphis 21-20, New York 22-21, Miami 21-21, Phoenix 21-23,Sacramento 19-24, Golden State 19-24, Cleveland 18-23, the LosAngeles Clippers 18-24, Brooklyn 18-24, the Los Angeles Lakers17-25, and Atlanta 16-26.

WARRIORS’ROAD WOES

Golden Statehas won a road game in 27 consecutive playoff series, an NBA recordand obviously a major reason why the Warriors have four of the lasteight championships.

They’ll needto rekindle that road magic.

The Warriors— who don’t have home-court advantage in Round 1 againstSacramento, so they’ll need at least one road win to have a chancein the series — went 3-19 against playoff teams away from home thisseason.

The last timeany playoff team was that bad on the road during the regular seasonagainst other eventual playoff qualifiers was 2004. Denver was 2-20entering those playoffs in road games against fellow postseasonclubs that season, and Miami was 3-19.

PLAYOFFPOOL

The NBA’spostseason playoff pool is up nearly $10 million from last year.This year, the 16 playoff teams will divide up $26,969,000.

Every team isassured of at least $402,493 for making the playoffs. The payoutsincrease considerably as teams advance, and the teams with the bestsix records in each conference get more money as well.

Milwaukee hasalready clinched $1,860,950 from the pool — $777,777 for having thebest record in the NBA and another $680,680 for having the bestrecord in the Eastern Conference. If the Bucks win the title, theirshare of the pool would soar to $7,907,335.

Last year’spool was $17,317,334.