With only three weeks remaining in the 2023/24 National Basketball Association (NBA) regular season, the Boston Celtics are the only team to eclipse 50 games in the win column and with a win over the Phoenix Suns last week Thursday night (combined with a loss by the Philadelphia 76ers to the Milwaukee Bucks the same night), they became the first — and only team — to clinch a coveted play-off spot.

This marks the 10th-straight season the Celtics have made the post-season, and the 16th time in the last 17 years their season has been extended. Boston have a comfortable lead over second place in the Eastern Conference and should secure the number one seed with another six or seven victories.

They have 13 games left in the season, and Head Coach Joe Mazzulla will likely start employing some off nights for stars Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown (and Kristaps Porzinigs, and Derrick White, and Jrue Holiday, and Al Horford) once the top seeding is safely established.

They visit Little Caesars Arena this evening to take on the lowly Detroit Pistons, who have already been eliminated from the post-season, and the Celtics are highly favoured to take one step closer to the pinnacle in their conference. However, while the regular season has been a dream for the Boston fans, it will all come to nought if the Celtics don’t close out with something they haven’t done since 2008: win the NBA title.

In the Western Conference, things could not be any tighter and the number one slot could easily go to any of the teams currently in the top five positions, with the top three — Oklahoma City Thunder, Denver Nuggets and Minnesota Timberwolves — within a game of each other.

The Thunder and the Nuggets have already faced off four times this season, with the defending champions, Denver, losing three of those matchups. If the two teams finish the season with the exact same record, Oklahoma City will win the tiebreaker due to the head-to-head record.

As for the series between the Nuggets and the Timberwolves, Minnesota won the first encounter, and they will face-off three more times before the play-offs begin in mid-April. Recently, the Timberwolves lost All-Star centre Karl Anthony-Towns to a torn left meniscus, but in his absence Anthony Edwards has been making headlines and putting people in concussion protocol — Utah Jazz forward John Collins reportedly suffered a head contusion after he found himself at the wrong end of an Edwards’ dunk on Monday night.

Anthony-Towns underwent a surgical procedure to repair the meniscus, and Minnesota are hoping that he can return for the play-offs.

JustBet currently has the Nuggets favoured to top the Western Conference, and with one of the easiest remaining schedules, that will likely happen. The Thunder (arguably) have the toughest remaining schedule of the current top three in the conference, but they have had a remarkable season and should have enough in the tank to finish at least fourth.

The Timberwolves, and especially Edwards, are padding the highlight reels, but without Anthony-Towns, they are expected to finish the regular season in fifth or maybe sixth position.

With three weeks remaining in the regular season and everything at stake, the games in both conferences will all take on a play-off feel, and the jockeying for positions will only intensify over the next three weeks. There are 22 games slated for this weekend and each one has play-off implications. There is very little room for error and those with ambitions of extending their season can ill-afford to take their foot off the accelerator.

Two such teams are the Timberwolves and the Cleveland Cavaliers, who are both currently No 3 in the Western and Eastern Conference, respectively. The Cavaliers travel to Target Center this evening with the hope of downing the short-handed Minnesota team, which, if successful, would be a repeat of their feat earlier this month.

On March 8, in Cleveland, point guard Darius Garland scored 34 points, and centre Jarrett Allen added a career-high 33 (plus 18 rebounds), to hand the NBA’s best road team, Minnesota, a 113-104 overtime defeat.

Cleveland were without starters Donovan Mitchell, Evan Mobley and Max Strus, but four days prior to that win, the Cavaliers had rallied from a 22-point deficit to stun the high-riding Celtics squad, and entered the game high on confidence.

Cleveland will still be without those starters this evening and the Timberwolves will be missing Anthony-Towns and (more than likely) Rudy Gobert, but there is a plethora of talent in both locker rooms that should make this an exciting encounter.

The Timberwolves have the fifth-best home record in the league and are expected to exact revenge for the loss earlier this month.

On Sunday evening, the Milwaukee Bucks will welcome Oklahoma City into Fiserv Forum for an expected blockbuster. The Bucks are toggling between the second and third slots in the Eastern Conference, while the Thunder is making their presence felt in the battle for the top position in the Western Conference, owning the season-series tiebreaker with the defending champion Nuggets.

This will be the first meeting of these teams this season — with a second match-up slated for April 12 — and all indicators point to an edge-of-your-seat nail-biter. There have been 37 contests between these combatants, with Milwaukee enjoying the slightest of edges (19-18), but the heart of this weekend’s challenge lies in the hands of the main instigators: Giannis Antetokounmpo for the Bucks and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander for the Thunder.

They both lead their respective teams in most categories, with their scoring averages almost identical (Giannis 30.8 and Shai 30.9), but a hamstring issue kept Giannis out of the contest on Wednesday against the Celtics — his second-straight game — and there is no guarantee he will be available on Sunday.

Hopefully, he can go and make this the highly competitive challenge everyone is expecting, but if he is unavailable, the likes of Damian Lillard, Khris Middleton and Bobby Portis Jr should offer enough firepower to make it interesting.

This is too close to call, but if I were a betting man, my money would be on the availability of Giannis and the Bucks cementing their status as the NBA’s third-best, home-win team.

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NBA 2023/24 Champion

Team Odds

Boston Celtics 3.25

Denver Nuggets 4.20

Los Angeles Clippers 7.20

Milwaukee Bucks 8.20

Oklahoma City Thunder 22.00

Phoenix Suns 22.00

Minnesota Timberwolves 28.00

New York Knicks 29.00

Miami Heat 30.00

Philadelphia 76ers 30.00

*Only Top 10 odds shown (see website for full list)

Note: Odds are subject to change