NBA Playoffs picks, odds, how to watch Sunday: No. 1 seeds, Boston’s title defense, Warriors-Rockets

It’s been a quick sprint into the NBA postseason. Play-in action gave us a Game of the Year contender with Grizzlies-Warriors, then a loopy late comeback in Heat-Hawks. Saturday’s full four-game slate gives way to an equally-loaded Sunday run.

We start the four Game 1s with high-flying Memphis at 68-win Oklahoma City. The Thunder finished with the best point differential in NBA history, and their guests are a fascinating, if flawed, young group. Then we get Magic vs. Celtics, as the reigning champs begin the march to No. 19 on their parquet home floor. The ever-resilient Miami Heat try juggernaut Cleveland in the third slot and we close out the weekend with a super-awesome Warriors-Rockets matchup.

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Memphis Grizzlies at Oklahoma City Thunder

Series odds: Thunder -2000, Grizzlies +1000

It’s been a disorienting season for the Grizz, who clawed through untimely injuries and a crisis of leadership to land the West’s final playoff berth. Ja Morant is a cipher, and the team is starting a rookie center (Zach Edey) with an undrafted guard (Scotty Pippen Jr.), but Memphis was on pace to set the franchise wins records before a stumble down the stretch. Morant, Desmond Bane and Jaren Jackson Jr. anchored a spirited 20-point comeback in Golden State’s gym on Tuesday. They fell short in ways both awkward and enervating, but responded by balling out against the Mavs Friday.

Their reward? An all-time great regular season squad that went 35-6 at home. MVP favorite Shai Gilgeous-Alexander led the league in scoring. The team led the league in defensive rating, net rating, turnovers allowed and turnovers forced. Oklahoma City is deep, disciplined and always switchable. It’s the favorite to win the West until proven otherwise.

Coolest head-to-head playoff moment: This never gets old.

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Orlando Magic at Boston Celtics

Series odds: Celtics -5000, Magic +1600

The Celts turned in a dignified regular-season effort as defending champs: top-five metrics on both ends of the floor, most 3-pointers made as well as the usual synergy between Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown, Derrick White and the rest. The franchise has stacked consecutive 60-win years for the first time since 2007-09.

The favorites actually lost two of three meetings with the Magic, though all starters were on ice for the April 9 rubber match. Like Boston, Orlando plays with a particularly slow pace and grinds down opponents on D. No one is worse behind the arc (31.8 percent as a team, which is early-2000s clunky).

Playoff history: Orlando has claimed two of three all-time series. The Shaq-and-Penny Magic issued a 3-1 beatdown in 1995’s first round, and Dwight Howard’s Magic hung on in seven games in the 2009 conference semis. Boston got its revenge the following spring, advancing to the 2010 Finals with a 4-2 win.

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Miami Heat at Cleveland Cavaliers

Series odds: Cavs -2500, Heat +1200

“I found this season to be quite a challenge. I felt alive by the challenge,” longtime Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said on Friday. “It was frustrating. I think those are the opportunities for the most growth, really just trying to figure things out. And then we’ve got a locker room that felt the same way. It brought us closer together.”

What a bizarre campaign for Miami, the league’s hustle-culture standard bearers, which had to suddenly having to pivot off Jimmy Butler. The Heat looked understandably out of sorts during and after the trade deadline, but their back-to-back road wins in elimination spots showed some courage. Davion Mitchell had a career-best moment in Atlanta on Friday, Bam Adebayo is still one of the best defenders in the business and Tyler Herro is leaping tall buildings in a single bound. He dropped 38 points in Chicago on Wednesday, then scored another 30 on Friday.

The resurgence likely ends here. Cleveland is a wine-and-gold wagon. It notched 60 wins for the first time without LeBron James, posting its best offensive numbers in 55 years of existence. First-year Cavs strategist Kenny Atkinson transformed a once-slow offense into the NBA’s top-scoring force (on just the 10th-fastest pace, no less). Six scorers put up at least 12.5 points per game, and the team went 34-7 on its own floor.

Playoff history: This is the first playoff series between LeBron’s first two teams.

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Golden State Warriors at Houston Rockets

Series odds: Warriors -165, Rockets +140

It’s playoff basketball with Draymond Green and Dillon Brooks as principal actors. The haterade cooler will be brimming. What a way to wrap the weekend.

This series presents tough matchups and cruel rewards for both sides. Houston, a budding group with modest expectations this fall, scrapped its way up to No. 2 in the loaded West. Who had Ime Udoka’s defense-first set beating out Nikola Jokić’s Nuggets, both starry Los Angeles rosters and many others in this competitive conference? For their hard work, the Rockets get the searing and soaring Warriors with their championship pedigree.

Golden State, meanwhile, reversed its fortunes with the Jimmy Butler trade. “Play-In Jimmy” was in full effect this week. Steph Curry produced so many vintage moments against Memphis, and the emergence of Brandin Podziemski is the platonic ideal of the front office’s “two-timeline” system. The Warriors’ aggressive about-face has them favored in the series, but not quite in Game 1 against Houston, which is among the game’s best on defense and in clutch-time spots.

Jalen Green is 23 years old. Amen Thompson and Alperen Şengün are 22. That means Curry and Green have been in playoff spots since Houston’s core was in middle school. This should be one of the coolest opening-round series.

Playoff history: A perfect 4-0 for the Warriors. In a half-decade conference cold war that defined an NBA era, Golden State knocked Houston out in 2015, ’16, ’18 and ’19. All four were tough looks for James Harden and H-Town, but one fateful afternoon — and 27 consecutive clanks — was the heartbreak headliner.

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(Photo of Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown: Maddie Meyer / Getty Images)

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