The Indiana Pacers and the New York Knicks overcame the odds in their respective second-round playoff matchups to set up an Eastern Conference Finals matchup between one another. And in doing so, they also completely proved a significant portion of the NBA analysts at ESPN wrong in the process.
Ahead of the series, a 12-person panel at ESPN consisting of Tim MacMahon, Kevin Pelton, Ramona Shelburne, Andre Snellings, Jorge Sedeno, Jerry Brembry, Dave McMenamin, Jamal Collier, Chris Herring, Marc Spears, and Jeremy Woo all predicted who they thought would win both the Pacers-Cavaliers series and the Knicks-Celtics series in an article titled “2025 NBA playoff picks: Experts predict the second-round”.
Everyone had the exact same prediction in terms of the outcome of each series, picking both the Cavaliers and the Celtics to advance to the Eastern Conference Finals. In totality, the picks were a combined 0-24 between everyone’s respective picks, which was pointed out by an account on X called “Woj Artest”.
To be fair to everyone who got it wrong in both postseason matchups, the odds were entirely in their favor. The Cavaliers went into their series as -500 favorites to make it past the Pacers. Meanwhile, the Celtics, who handled the Knicks by an average of over 16 points in their four regular-season matchups, were even bigger favorites to get past the Knicks on sportsbooks at -800.
Still, it is perhaps somewhat of a shock to see that none of these media personalities had either series going the other way. The Pacers did notably win three of their four game against the Cavaliers in the regular season. So that upset was at least somewhat predictable.
Naturally, there were plenty of fans on social media who found some comedy in the article’s name that labeled those making the predictions as “experts” given the results of their picks.
On the bright side, it’s going to be hard for these media members to be as wrong as they were in the second round when they make their picks for the Conference Finals matchups.
