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For once, the Knicks have themselves a fun little team. Jalen Brunson is one of the finest pure scoring guards in the league. Julius Randle is somehow still churning out 20 and 10 games as a small-ball forward. And Tom Thibodeau knows how to maximize his roster, even if means playing his stars 35-plus minutes a night in the regular season.

But the Knicks are good, not great. At 6-foot-2, Brunson would be one of the shortest best players on a championship-contending team in NBA history. There’s also not much to write home about here, with a roster that has a thin bench and sometimes struggles to score. The Knicks can win a playoff series again, just like last year. I don’t think they should be counting on much more.

They’re no longer the running joke of the league, and that in itself is a win.

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With all due respect to future Hall of Famers in Antetokounmpo and Lillard, I don’t think Rivers moves the title needle as much as Milwaukee hopes. (If he does at all, as my For The Win colleague Mike Sykes wondered.)

Adrian Griffin’s scheming and strategy left much to be desired, but coaching was not the Bucks’ main issue. It was personnel. Antetokounmpo and Brook Lopez are two All-NBA-caliber defenders in the frontcourt, but the Bucks are atrocious defensively at both guard spots and at small forward. Between Lillard, Pat Connaughton, Cameron Payne, and Malik Beasley, I don’t think there’s a single point-of-attack defender I trust on this roster. Not one. And that’s the main reason Milwaukee has struggled on that side of the court, with a defensive net rating ranked 21st in the league. The Bucks can’t stop the ball, which is … very bad!

Rivers will likely add more coherence to the Bucks’ on-court organization, but he’s not exactly known as some brilliant strategizing coach who can make up for significant roster flaws by himself. Barring a massive trade deadline move for a glue guy defense-first guard (Alex Caruso? Bruce Brown?), this Bucks team has a mid-May exit written all over it.

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The defending Eastern champs have had a rough go of it this year. They’ve got three separate losing streaks of at least three games, and, at the time of this writing, they’re only the sixth seed in the conference.

Plus, my god, Miami cannot score. A 20th-ranked offense in net rating does not do the Heat’s offensive woes proper justice. Miami is also just:

• 17th in true shooting percentage
• 20th in effective field goal percentage
• 17th in turnover percentage
• 26th in points per game

That offensive resume does not scream “championship contender.”

However, with All-NBA-caliber center Bam Adebayo anchoring the middle, the Heat still have an elite defense (10th in net rating). And considering their general offensive struggles, a 13th-ranked half-court offense per HoopsHype is pretty solid. Most importantly, these guys are playoff risers led by Erik Spoelstra, the best coach in the NBA. Come springtime, they’re going to grind teams down to a pulp. They’re going to execute in the halfcourt. And Jimmy Butler will close folks out like the ultimate playoff assassin he is.

The Heat are just biding their time until they have to play a best-of-seven series. I don’t blame them.

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The Celtics have everything. Everything.

Between Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown and Kristaps Porzingis, they have three 20ish point-per-game scorers. Derrick White, Jrue Holiday, and Porzingis anchor the league’s second-best defense in net rating. No one attempts more threes, and no one has more three-point shooters over 35 percent. And they might have the finest top-eight in the NBA. This is an optimized team built to win 60 games in the regular season. A finely tuned machine.

But can they execute playoff-caliber basketball at the absolute highest level against better-coached teams whose talent isn’t all that different? Not so much. And that’s what actually matters.

What happens when the parade of threes isn’t falling? Years into the Tatum-Brown era, the Celtics still don’t have a bread-and-butter offense in crunch time. It is still “your turn, my turn.” If you don’t have a go-to offense when defenses are rotating, switching and closing out with fervor in a tight fourth quarter, there’s a definitive ceiling on what you can accomplish. And forgive me if I don’t perceive Joe Mazzulla as some master tactician. If he was, the Celtics wouldn’t have this crunch-time offensive issue anymore.

The question with the uber-talented Celtics will always be what happens when they get punched in the mouth by a tougher team when the game slows down in May. That this is something that still has to be asked is not an excellent sign for adding banner No. 18 to their arena’s rafters.

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It’s been roughly 10 years into talk of “The Process” with the 76ers. I look at how this Philadelphia team is comprised and see a roster ready to pay the bill.

Reigning MVP Joel Embiid is playing better than ever. Tyrese Maxey is a fantastic sidekick at point guard. De’Anthony Melton, Tobias Harris, Patrick Beverley, Kelly Oubre Jr, and even Nicolas Batum round out a roster with role players who stick to what they do well. This team, on paper, has enough to win multiple heavyweight fights in the East. The vibes and team chemistry are awesome! Full stop.

Where the 76ers used to fall short is coaching. In the playoffs, it’s all about chess matches, about in-series adjustments to offensive and defensive schemes with an opponent you see 6-7 times over the course of two weeks. It is just as much about how you attack an evenly matched team, not only in whether you have the talent to be there. In Nick Nurse, Philadelphia finally has a top-five coach ready for this mammoth of a task. A true floor general who will usually put his players in the most optimal position to succeed. (Also, I don’t think anyone in the East, outside of perhaps Adebayo in Miami, has someone who can stick with Embiid.)

If these 76ers can’t win the East this year, they probably never will.