Sixteen teams in total make the NBA playoffs, eight teams from both the Eastern and Western Conference. The top six seeds in each conference advance based on the regular season record. The final two seeds in each conference are determined by the NBA Play-In Tournament.

The Thunder and the Pacers hold the early lead in their respective NBA Conference Finals series. Here's what you need to know.

Which two teams will reach the NBA Finals? We'll have complete coverage of the playoffs all the way until the champion is crowned. (The 2025 Finals tip off June 5 on ABC and the ESPN App.) The league's conference semifinals wrapped on Sunday with the Oklahoma City Thunder outlasting the Denver Nuggets in this round's only Game 7.

Game 2 of the Western Conference Finals between the Timberwolves and Thunder tips off Thursday night at 7:30 PM CT at Paycom Center in Oklahoma City. The game will air on ESPN with Mike Breen, Doris Burke, Richard Jefferson and Lisa Salters on the call.

Prior to this season, sportsbooks didn't see Indy, N.Y., Minnesota and OKC as the NBA's Final Four. See how each squad bucked the odds from preseason to now.

Whichever two teams emerge from the NBA's conference finals will produce a Finals matchup we've never seen before. But not all of them are created equal. As the conference finals heat up heading into Friday's Game 2 between the New York Knicks and Indiana Pacers (8 p.

The audience for the 2025 NBA Playoffs on ESPN platforms ( ESPN and ABC) is up 12% from last year, according to Nielsen. Through the Conference Semifinals (22 games), ESPN is averaging 4,883,000 viewers, making it the second-most watched NBA Playoffs since 2011.

The matchups are set for the 2025 NBA conference finals, as the Thunder will meet the Timberwolves in the Western Conference Finals and the Knicks will play the Pacers in the Eastern Conference Finals.