Two months from now, an NBA champion will be crowned. The defending champion Oklahoma City Thunder are +155 favorites to retain the title, but the other 15 teams in this playoff field should take solace in the fact that there hasn’t been a back-to-back NBA title winner since the Golden State Warriors repeated in 2018. Parity seems to be the name of the game in today’s league, as there are currently seven teams at Fanatics Sportsbook with +2000 odds or lower to win the championship.
The long playoff road begins now, with eight first round series on tap. Below, we will dish out a betting preview for each first round matchup.
Eastern Conference1 Detroit Pistons vs. 8. Charlotte Hornets/Orlando MagicThe Pistons have been living easy this week, watching the NBA Play-In Tournament from home. Their first round opponent will be decided Friday night, as the Hornets face the Magic in Orlando.
Game 1 of Detroit versus either Charlotte or Orlando is set for 6:30 p.m. ET on Sunday in Detroit.
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If regular season results are any indicator, the Pistons would probably rather see the Hornets in Round 1. JB Bickerstaff’s squad swept the season series against the Hornets, 3-0, and won those games by an average of 16.6 points. Detroit split its season series with the Magic, 2-2.
The Pistons were 44-39-0 against the spread this season. Charlotte was an NBA-best 50-33-0 ATS, while the Magic was 38-45-0 ATS.
Detroit games have gone Over the total 38 times this season, and have gone Under 43 times. One Pistons game in the regular season hit the total on the nose.
2 Boston Celtics vs. 7 Philadelphia 76ersCeltics vs. Sixers. It’s a great rivalry in the same sense that the hammer and the nail are great adversaries. Joel Embiid even said himself a few years back, “This is not a rivalry. They always kick our ass.”Indeed, Boston has beaten the 76ers in six straight playoff series. Philly has not beaten Boston in a playoff series since 1982.
The teams split their 2025-26 regular season series, 2-2. In a strange scheduling quirk, the two teams met three times between Opening Night on Oct. 22, 2025 and Nov. 11, 2025, with Philly taking two-out-of-three of the early-season meetings.
Their only meeting in the second half of the 2025-26 regular season came on March 1, when Boston’s Neemias Queta went off for 27 points and 17 rebounds in a 114-98 Celtics win. It should be noted that the Sixers were without Embiid and Paul George that night, and Jayson Tatum had not yet returned for the Celtics.
Boston has the second-best against the spread record in the NBA, owning a 49-33-0 mark. Philly is not too shabby itself with a 44-39-0 record.
Joe Mazzulla’s C’s were not kind to Over bettors this season, though, as they went Over the number a league-worst 30 times. They went Under 52 times.
Philly games, meanwhile, went Over 40 times and Under 43 times.
The Celtics are -12.5 favorites for Game 1, which will take place at TD Garden in Boston at 1 p.m. ET Sunday. Boston is a -900 favorite to win the series.
3 New York Knicks vs. 6. Atlanta HawksTrae Young isn’t walking through that door—and neither the Knicks or Hawks should care anymore. The Knicks are an entirely different team than the one that fell to Young’s Hawks in a memorable first round series in 2021. And Atlanta, which traded Young to the Wizards this past January, has thrived since moving on from the ball-dominant guard.
Atlanta is now led by young stars Jalen Johnson (22.5 ppg) and Nickeil Alexander-Walker (20.8 ppg) with Dyson Daniels emerging as one of the top defenders in the NBA.
Atlanta has been one of the hottest teams in the league in the past month-and-a-half, having gone 16-5 since March 1. One of those five losses came at the hands of the Knicks, which downed Atlanta 108-105 at State Farm Arena on April 6. Jalen Brunson was spectacular, tallying 30 points and 13 assists.
The Knicks won the season series, 2-1. The away team won all three games in matchups between these two teams this season.
Atlanta went 44-38-0 against the spread in the 2025-26 regular season, while the Knicks went 44-39-0 ATS.