Yahoo Sports NBA's 2019 playoff predictions

Updated 12 April 2019 at 10:46 am

The NBA playoffs are here. The awards ballots are in. (Hi, Giannis Antetokounmpo.) We’ve broken down all eight first-round series, ranking them based on upset potential and highlighting the seven playoff co-stars who could swing the 2019 title. The games begin on Saturday, so it’s time to unveil our annual playoff predictions.

The Yahoo Sports NBA crew unanimously took the Golden State Warriors to three-peat and capture a fourth championship in five seasons, with most of us believing Stephen Curry will win his first Finals MVP over two-time winner Kevin Durant.

Other than the Warriors, whose star-studded lineup makes them a safe bet, we couldn’t agree on anything after the opening round (and even then, we were split on the 3-6 and 2-7 matchups in the West). None of us had the Denver Nuggets getting out of the conference semifinals, instead splitting the vote between the Oklahoma City Thunder and Portland Trail Blazers for the right to lose to Golden State.

The East is even more split. Our picks to reach the conference finals span all four top seeds, and most of us served up the Toronto Raptors as chum for the Warriors.

Yahoo Sports NBA playoff predictions. (Amber Matsumoto)

Check out the rest of our playoff preview coverage:

• The 2019 NBA Playoff Upset Index (complete with the full playoff schedule)

• The seven playoff co-stars who could swing the 2019 NBA championship

And follow Yahoo Sports NBA writers Chris Haynes (@ChrisBHaynes), Vincent Goodwill (@VinceGoodwill, Seerat Sohi (@seeratsohi) and Ben Rohrbach (@brohrbach) for complete coverage of the playoffs. See you at the opening tip.

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