The Rockets Lead The Way In The West FiveThirtyEight’s NBA podcast breaks down the playoff landscape for the Western Conference.

Welcome to The Lab, FiveThirtyEight’s basketball podcast. To celebrate the start of the NBA playoffs, we have two shows for you this week. Thursday’s episode (April 12, 2018) breaks down the first round in the Western Conference, where the Golden State Warriors are no longer in the pole position. Instead it’s the Houston Rockets, who have a 44 percent chance of winning the title according to FiveThirtyEight’s forecast. Neil, Kyle and Chris analyze the Rockets’ first-round series against the Minnesota Timberwolves, as well as the other first-round series in the West, on Thursday’s episode. The crew will have an Eastern Conference preview for you on Friday.

Here are links to what the podcast discussed this week: