In This Year’s NBA Finals, The Reigning Champions Are The Underdogs Hot Takedown is breaking down this week’s NBA and NHL championship games.

Welcome to the latest episode of Hot Takedown, FiveThirtyEight’s sports podcast. On this week’s show (May 30, 2017), we discuss the final rounds of both the NBA and NHL playoffs. First, we break down this year’s Warriors-Cavaliers NBA Finals, discussing how likely the Cavs really are to repeat as champions and whether parity will return to the NBA anytime soon. Next, Neil Greenberg of the Washington Post’s Fancy Stats blog joins us to discuss the Pittsburgh Penguins and Nashville Predators’ fight for the Stanley Cup. Has Preds’ goaltender Pekka Rinne peaked? Will the Penguins pull off an improbable repeat championship? We investigate. Plus, a significant digit on Mike Trout’s injury.

Here are links to stories we discussed: