Your 2015 NBA Eastern Conference playoff picture and tiebreaker guide

We break down the standings and tiebreaker situation as the regular season winds down.

Only two seeds in the 2015 NBA Eastern Conference playoff picture are locked in. This post has a breakdown of the teams' records and all the relevant tiebreakers. We'll update it every morning for the remainder of the regular season to reflect the current situation. Scroll down for tiebreaker information.

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Last updated: Includes results from games played on 4/10/15. A Toronto win put the Raptors back in No. 3 due to a tiebreaker; the Wizards lost and are very likely No. 5 now. The Hornets have been eliminated. All of the other teams chasing the 6-7-8 seeds won, save for idle Miami.

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Current playoff picture

This is the Too Long; Didn't Read version. If the season ended today, here are your first-round matchups. The seeds that are locked in are in ALL CAPS.

HAWKS (1) vs. Nets (8)

Bulls (4) vs. Wizards (5)



CAVALIERS (2) vs. Celtics (7)

Raptors (3) vs. Bucks (6)

Standings

Obviously, tiebreakers only matter if the teams are tied. There is one oddity here: division winners cannot be seeded below No. 4. But division winners don't get home-court advantage against teams higher than them in the standings anyway.

Here's the jumble for the Nos. 3-5 spots.

3. Raptors    47-32  --
4. Bulls      47-32  --
5. Wizards    45-34  2

And here's the race for the last three spots.

6. Bucks      39-40  --
7. Celtics    37-42  2
8. Nets       37-42  2
9. Pacers     36-43  3
10. Heat      35-44  4
11. Hornets   32-46  6

Tiebreaker Situations

If teams finish the season tied in the standings, these tiebreakers will decide berths and seeds.

TORONTO over Chicago and/or Washington (division winner)

WASHINGTON over Chicago: Teams split season series and are tied in conference standings. All remaining games for both teams are against East teams. Therefore, if the Wizards tie the Bulls in the standings, they will by default have a better East record and the tiebreaker.

MILWAUKEE over Boston (H2H), Miami (H2H) and Brooklyn (conference record)

BOSTON over Brooklyn and Indiana (H2H)

BROOKLYN over Indiana (H2H)

INDIANA over Miami (H2H) and Milwaukee (divisional record)

MIAMI over Boston and Brooklyn (H2H)

Head-to-Head Data

This is the head-to-head data used in the above tiebreaker breakdown.

The following table shows each playoff contender's record against other playoff contenders. BOLD indicates one of the teams has clinched the head-to-head tiebreaker for the season. ITALICS indicates a season series tie. An asterisk indicates the teams will play only three times this season. Otherwise, the teams play each other four times.

X	ATL	CLE	TOR	CHI	WAS	MIL	IND	CHA	MIA	BOS	BKN
ATL	--	ATL 3-1	TOR 3-1	ATL 2-0*	ATL 3-0	ATL 3-1	ATL 3-0*	2-2	ATL 4-0	ATL 2-1*	ATL 4-0
CLE	ATL 3-1	--	CLE 3-1	CLE 3-1	CLE 2-1	CLE 3-1	2-2	CLE 3-0*	2-2	CLE 2-1	CLE 3-1
TOR	TOR 3-1	CLE 3-1	--	CHI 4-0	TOR 3-0*	TOR 2-1*	TOR 3-0*	CHA 2-1	1-1*	TOR 2-1	2-2
CHI	ATL 2-0*	CLE 3-1	CHI 4-0	--	2-2	CHI 4-0	2-2	2-2	CHI 2-1*	CHI 3-1	CHI 2-1
WAS	ATL 3-0	CLE 2-1	TOR 3-0*	2-2	--	WAS 2-1*	WAS 2-1	2-2	WAS 3-1	WAS 2-1*	2-2
MIL	ATL 3-1	CLE 3-1	TOR 2-1*	CHI 4-0	WAS 2-1*	--	2-2	CHA 2-1*	MIL 4-0	MIL 2-0*	MIL 2-1
IND	ATL 3-0*	2-2	TOR 3-0*	2-2	WAS 2-1	2-2	--	IND 3-1	IND 3-1	BOS 3-1	BKN 2-1*
CHA	2-2	CLE 3-0*	CHA 2-1	2-2	2-2	CHA 2-1*	IND 3-1	--	2-2	2-2	BKN 2-1*
MIA	ATL 4-0	2-2	1-1*	CHI 2-1*	WAS 3-1	MIL 4-0	IND 3-1	2-2	--	MIA 3-1	MIA 4-0
BOS	ATL 2-1*	CLE 2-1	TOR 2-1	CHI 3-1	WAS 2-1*	MIL 2-0*	BOS 3-1	2-2	MIA 3-1	--	BOS 3-1
BKN	ATL 4-0	CLE 3-1	2-2	CHI 2-1	2-2	MIL 2-1	BKN 2-1*	BKN2-1*	MIA 4-0	BOS 3-1	--

Be sure to also see our Guide to the West Tiebreakers.

Source SBNation.com - All Posts http://ift.tt/1CgE0VY