The first round of the 2025 National Basketball Association (NBA) play-offs was a true roller-coaster ride. There were two sweeps, three series went to five games and the other three went beyond five.

There was one major upset in the Western Conference, where the sixth-seeded Minnesota Timberwolves took down third-seeded Los Angeles Lakers, completing the series in five games on Wednesday.

The Lakers were 28-19 at the time they traded for Luka Doncic on February 1, a trade that sent Anthony Davis to the Dallas Mavericks. They went 22-13 over their final 35 regular season games to enter the play-offs as the No 3 seed in the Western Conference. But while the trade brought some offensive firework, it also forced them to play without a dominant big man, which was highlighted against the Timberwolves, particularly in Wednesday’s Game 5 as Rudy Gobert showed his dominance in the paint, finishing with 27 points and 24 rebounds. The Lakers are now left with more questions than answers

As in the course of the regular season, the No 1 seeds in both the Eastern and Western Conference, the Cleveland Cavaliers and the Oklahoma City Thunder, showed their authority, defeating the No 8 respective seed 4-0, with each registering a 50+ point win in the first round. The Thunder were devastating in Game 1, winning by 51 points, the fifth-highest margin in an NBA play-off game, while the Cavaliers, not to be left out, won their Game 4 by 55 points, the fourth-highest margin in an NBA play-off game.

The NBA record for the largest play-off win margin is 58 points, done twice: Minneapolis over St Louis in 1956 and Denver over New Orleans in 2009. The Los Angeles Lakers beat the Golden State Warriors by 56 points in 1973.

And while the sweep by Oklahoma City over the Memphis Grizzlies was impressive, featuring the NBA scoring champion Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Cleveland finished off the most lopsided series in NBA play-off history on April 28, breaking a 16-year-old play-off record, winning their four games against the Miami Heat by a combined 122 points. The previous record was a 121-point combined win by the Denver Nuggets over the New Orleans Pelicans in 2009.

Additionally, Cleveland’s 39-point half-time lead (72-33) was the third-largest lead after two quarters in NBA play-off history. The only bigger half-time leads were Cleveland by 41 points over the Boston Celtics in 2017 and the Detroit Pistons by 40 over the Washington Bullets in 1987.

Cleveland will now face the Indiana Pacers in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference semi-finals tomorrow, following their exciting 119-118 overtime clincher against the Milwaukee Bucks on Tuesday night. The Bucks found themselves outmatched for most of the series and, outside of their Game 3 win and the fight displayed in Game 5, they were never really a threat to win the series.

The Pacers are one of only three teams with a winning record against the Cavaliers this season, the others being the Houston Rockets (2-0) and Sacramento Kings (2-0). The Pacers are 3-1 for the season against the Cavaliers and their only loss was suffered in mid-January, at home, and have won both match-ups since. Of course, what happens in the regular season has very little bearing on the results in the postseason, but the Pacers must be entering this matchup with the utmost confidence knowing they had Cleveland’s number this season.

As for the Thunder, as at Wednesday of this week they were still waiting for the completion of the series between the Denver Nuggets and the Los Angeles Clippers to confirm their Western Conference semi-finals opponent. The Thunder have a losing record against only one team this season and that can be credited to the Warriors (1-2). They are 2-2 against the Nuggets and 4-0 against the Clippers, which would therefore suggest that the easier path to the Western Conference Finals would be through Los Angeles.

Sporting the youngest roster in the NBA, with only two players in the locker room born at least 30 years ago — Alex Caruso (31) and Kenrich Williams (30) — they won the Maurice Podoloff Trophy and home-court for the entire play-offs after clinching the best record in the league for the first time in franchise history.

JustBet still have the Thunder and Celtics as the favoured pairing for the championship round and, outside of the Cavaliers possibly pulling off a slight upset in the Eastern Conference, it appears we are heading in that direction. As at April 30, Cleveland and Indiana are the only confirmed match-up for the semifinal round as Oklahoma City, Boston and Minnesota wait with bated breath to see who will emerge as challengers. There were a few surprises in the first round but nothing very catastrophic. The NBA-nation now braces for impact as the semi-final round begins and battle-tested bodies will be put to the test, with everything at stake.

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