Six NBA Playoff Questions That Will Define This Postseason

March and April can lie to you. The final stretch of the regular season is full of teams coasting into the playoffs, the worst squads tanking hard, star players getting shut down, and all kinds of weird situations that don't mean much when October rolls around. The Malachi Flynn Principle, as some call it: late-season noise isn't always predictive of what actually happens when the stakes get real.

So as the 2025-26 regular season hits its final weekend, league insiders are asking the same question they always ask right now: which trends are real, and which ones reverse once the playoffs start? That's the job of coaches, scouts, and executives this time of year. They're trying to separate signal from noise.

Can the Lakers Survive Without Their Best Players?

Here's the Lakers' nightmare scenario: both Luka Doncic (hamstring) and Austin Reaves (oblique) are dealing with Grade 2 strains. Both guys will obviously fight to get back for the first round, but these aren't small injuries. Nobody knows how a soft tissue injury feels two weeks out, so the Lakers have to plan for the worst case: Doncic and Reaves miss the entire series.

That means 41-year-old LeBron James carrying the load against the Houston Rockets, their most likely first round matchup. Can he do it?

An Eastern Conference scout put it bluntly: "There's tactical stuff I'm sure [Lakers coach JJ Redick] and his staff are examining and they're running through lineup ideas. But honestly, the Lakers need LeBron to have a hot shooting series and for the Rockets to have a cold shooting series. That's possible, and when LeBron gets his 3-pointer going, it opens up the entire game."

A Western Conference scout added another wrinkle: "They need Marcus Smart to be healthy. He's an important point-of-attack defender for them. They can't afford to lose another starter, and he's been out."

The real problem? This is exactly when James, Doncic, and Reaves finally had everything clicking together. The timing couldn't be worse.

This article was created with AI assistance and reviewed by Seattle On Tap editorial staff. Always verify information with official team sources.