Like most basketball fans, my attention at this time of the year has a tendency to be focused squarely on March Madness, but there’s this little thing called the NBA regular season that is still going on (who knew?) and there are several teams involved a heated race for the playoffs that start in mid-April.

EASTERN CONFERENCE

ESPN’s John Hollinger says that there are six Eastern Conference teams that have better than a 99% chance of earning a playoff spot this year: Cleveland, Boston, Orlando and Atlanta, who are all at 100%, along with Miami and Philadelphia.

Right now, Hollinger gives the Bulls (90%) and the Pistons (89%) the inside track for the last two spots in the East. There are four teams — Charlotte (9%), Indiana (7%), New Jersey (5%) and Milwaukee (3%) — that are varying degrees of longshots to earn a final spot. They’re sitting at 30 or 31 wins, three or four wins behind Chicago or Detroit, so with about 10 games remaining, it’s conceivable that the Bulls or Pistons could collapse and one or more of these teams could get hot.

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John Hollinger is ESPN’s numbers guy for the NBA, and he has a statistical formula that predicts the playoff odds for every NBA team. Here’s a look at the East:

1. Cleveland (98.9)
2. Boston (95.9)
3. Detroit (90.1)
4. Atlanta (88.8)
5. Philadelphia (67.7)
6. Miami (63.6)
7. Orlando (63.6)
8. Indiana (63.1)
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9. Chicago (57.2)
10. Toronto (53.7)
11. Milwaukee (32.4)
12. New York (10.5)
13. New Jersey (7.6)
14. Charlotte (6.8)
15. Washington (0.2)

Things are obviously looking dire for the Wizards right now. They are 1-7 and will be without Gilbert Arenas for a while. It’s early, but unless they are able to put together some wins with the current lineup, it looks like they will indeed miss the playoffs this season.

With all that talent, I would be shocked if the Raptors miss the playoffs. Hollinger says they have a 54% chance, but with Jose Calderon, Chris Bosh and Jermaine O’Neal, I think it’s just a matter of time before Toronto gels and strings a few wins together. I suspect that Toronto will replace Indiana in the top eight. Chicago and Milwaukee are darkhorses – they need more consistent play and a healthy Kirk Hinrich and Michael Redd, respectively.

Interestingly, the Knicks are 6-5, but Hollinger says that they only have a 11% chance to make the postseason.