A Basketball Fan’s Guide to Enjoying the Rest of the 2025

The NBA calendar follows the same cycles just about every year.

The start of the season is fresh and invigorating. By January, attrition begins to take its toll on even the best teams and the most passionate of fans. The trade deadline reignites buzz and inspires the imagination for a week. Then it’s the All-Star break and everyone takes a deep, deep breath before looking forward. The anticipation heightens as the post-ASB games tip off. What surprises might the second half have in store? What great games are waiting?

That’s where we are now. It’s hard not to get excited. We’ve gone a week without NBA basketball and it’s finally returning. All the biggest stars got a much-needed period of rest. The championship landscape has crystalized and shown us which teams will matter most down the stretch. The potential for great basketball seems limited only by the imagination.

But experienced viewers know this is a brief sugar high that gets crushed by the March doldrums. It won’t take long before discussion turns to the egregiousness of tanking and stars load-managing their way to the postseason at the expense of regular-season wins. In fewer words, the last stretch of the year can feel like a slog, and it’s often difficult to find joy in a slog.

But it is not impossible. There’s plenty of ways to enjoy these last 30 or so games of another NBA season. Here’s how to do it.

Beware not the Ides of March

Kawhi Leonard helped break fans out of the annual March malaise last year with a stellar stretch of performances. | Thomas Shea-Imagn Images

The NBA fades a bit from the public mind in the month of March. It’s mostly because of the NCAA tournament but March NBA games have a bad reputation because it’s when the weariness sets in for both fans and teams. The last 15 or so games of a very long campaign can feel like a trudge to even the most diehard of fans.

But it doesn’t have to be that way. There is beauty everywhere for those with eyes to see and such is the case with good basketball in March. Sometimes what happens ends up being pretty meaningful, too!

Take last year as an example. Kawhi Leonard showed off a vintage form in March, as did Zion Williamson; they were a blast to watch even as flashes in the pan relative to their performances that season. Quentin Grimes went on a borderline inexplicable heater that will get him a big raise this summer, so excellent was his play. Paolo Banchero averaged 30 for the month of March in 2025, which directly preceded the Magic’s decision to go all-in on Desmond Bane in a trade that is looking more problematic with each passing day.

There are plenty of illusionary performances in March. Injuries piling up and teams selectively resting players for one reason or another opens the door for unexpected names to rack up big numbers. But nothing, not even March basketball, happens in a vacuum. It all means something—as long as you’re looking in the right place.

Get excited about important games

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Anthony Edward — The Thunder and Timberwolves will face off on March 15 in one of the most exciting games left on the schedule. | Alonzo Adams-Imagn Images

It’s undeniable the quality of the games can get diluted down the stretch of the year. Between tanking, rest and the grind of the season wearing down everybody involved, the chances of tuning into an ugly basketball affair seem much higher. That’s mostly true, but it isn’t a guarantee. Every team (even the bad ones) will have important games left to be played on their schedules, where the outcomes matter quite a lot in terms of each organization’s overarching goal—as well as opportunities to measure up against potential postseason opponents.

At the very least there will definitely be playoff seeding to fight for, and this season seems ripe for some great games on that front. Unlike in previous years there is not a runaway team leading each conference. Exiting the break the Thunder hold only a three-game lead over the Spurs for the top spot in the West (and San Antonio holds the tiebreaker). The Pistons are more comfortably situated in the East with a 5 1/2-game lead over the Celtics but just a few poorly-timed losses can narrow the gap.

More broadly there should be serious competition for the middle postseason seeds. In the East, Boston holds the second seed with only a 1 1/2-game lead over the Cavaliers in fourth; in the West, the Nuggets sit in the third spot of the standings but are only 1 1/2 games ahead of the Lakers and Timberwolves in the fifth and sixth seeds, respectively. Teams will fight hard to earn as high a playoff seed as possible, which gives otherwise sleepy February and March battles a significant injection of juice.

In short: there will be games to watch that pique the interest and there will be plenty of motivation to win for both sides.

Best games left on the NBA schedule

GAME	DATE	REASON TO WATCH
Pistons @ Knicks	February 19	Playoff preview/rematch
Nuggets @ Thunder	February 27	Playoff seeding
Spurs @ Knicks	March 1	Victor Wembanyama at Madison Square Garden
Timberwolves @ Nuggets	March 1	Playoff seeding
Celtics @ Cavaliers	March 8	Playoff seeding/preview
Nuggets @ Spurs	March 12	Playoff seeding
Timberwolves @ Thunder	March 15	Playoff rematch/preview
Lakers @ Rockets	March 18	Playoff preview
Pistons @ Thunder	Match 30	Clash of top seeds
Celtics @ Knicks	April 9	Playoff seeding
Thunder @ Nuggets	April 10	Playoff seeding

Don’t get too worked up about tanking

Utah Jaz — The Jazz were fined $500,000 as part of the NBA’s anti-tanking efforts earlier this season. | Rob Gray-Imagn Images

Listen: tanking stinks. No doubt about it. It’s bad for the league in a broad sense. It’s important to take the NBA to task about tanking and issues like it if there is hope for change in the future.

However! The tanking discussion already hit peak outrage this year. It will be extremely tempting to relitigate all the tanking talking points in the coming months because it’s going to get bad. The quality of this year’s draft class, combined with funky trade protections that will require teams like the Jazz and Wizards to finish with a top-8 selection or lose their pick, means multiple teams are going to go to great lengths to lose. Perhaps to lengths we’ve never seen before.

There is a point, though, where we as a basketball-viewing society get too worked up about it. The annual fury about tanking in March is a negative energy vortex that drags attention away from the actual games being played. We cannot control whether the NBA will ever do something about it. But don’t let it get to you!

Tanking isn’t fun. It’s also not the only story of the NBA in March and April. Enjoy the good basketball and understand that the bad is simply part of a package deal for the time being. The lower blood pressure that follows will be good for everyone.

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