Inside the numbers: Led by Cleveland and Oklahoma City, it was the season of the streak in the NBA

It was the year of the long winning streak in the NBA.

There were five instances of teams winning 11 or more games in a row — three by Cleveland, two by Oklahoma City, and it's probably no coincidence that those two teams are the ones that earned No. 1 seeds in the Eastern and Western Conference playoff brackets.

It was the first time since 2017-18 that there were five separate winning streaks of 11 or more games in a season — there were a record 10 in the league that season.

Cleveland, which had winning streaks of 16, 15 and 12 games, became the second team in NBA history to have three streaks that long in the same season. The other was the 2006-07 Dallas Mavericks.

There was a flip side as well, those being losing streaks. Washington had two 16-game slides, the first NBA team have two of those in the same season since Charlotte had runs of 0-16 and 0-23 in the 2011-12 season.

Miami — which won an overtime play-in game at Atlanta to earn the No. 8 seed — became the 10th team in league history to lose at least 10 straight games and make the playoffs. The most recent teams to pull off such a feat: the 2021-22 Brooklyn Nets, the 2009-10 Chicago Bulls and 2001-02 Toronto Raptors.

Boston enters these playoffs as the defending NBA champion. But the Celtics are No. 1 again on another list as well.

For the first time since 1996-97, the Celtics ended a season with the best all-time record among active franchises. Boston passed San Antonio for the top spot; the Spurs had ended every season from 2014-15 through 2023-24 as No. 1 on that list.

The Lakers passed the Celtics in 1997-98 and held that spot for 17 seasons, before San Antonio climbed to No. 1. And now, it's Boston's turn to be atop the league again.

Boston's winning percentage in regular season games all-time is .596, which is .004 points ahead of the Spurs. The Lakers are third by a sliver — San Antonio's winning percentage is .59230, and the Lakers' is .59152.

There was a .002-point margin between the Celtics and Spurs entering this season.

The playoff pool for this season is a record $34,665,698, up 3% from last season.

As the team with the NBA’s best record, the Oklahoma City Thunder are already assured $2,096,424 from that pool. If the Thunder win the NBA title, they will claim more than one-third of the pool — $12,420,504.

Teams get shares for finishing with a top-six record in their conference, plus for making the playoffs and the size of the shares increase for advancing to later rounds. There's about a $5 million difference between winning and losing the NBA Finals.

The Pistons are back in the playoffs for the first time since 2019. Their fans have waited longer than that for a playoff win.

A lot longer.

Detroit's last playoff victory was May 26, 2008 — 94-75 against Boston. The Pistons are 0-14 in playoff games since.

The 14-game playoff losing streak is the longest in NBA history. New York had a 13-game streak that spanned from 2001 through 2012.

Every other NBA team has at least three playoff game wins since Detroit's most recent playoff victory. Some have way, way, way, way more than three, of course: Boston has 125, Miami has 110 and Golden State has 108 since then.

And there are six players — LeBron James (157), Klay Thompson (108), Draymond Green (107), Danny Green (105), Andre Iguodala (104) and Kevin Durant (101) — who have played in more than 100 playoff wins since the Pistons’ last postseason victory.

If the Pistons lose Game 1 against New York, Stephen Curry might join that 100-win club as well — he’s at 99.

Sorry, Milwaukee and the Clippers. History says those teams will not win the NBA title this season.

There’s never been a No. 5 seed to win a championship during the current playoff format. There’s been only one No. 5 seed — Miami during the bubble season in 2020 — to make the NBA Finals.

It’s not just an NBA thing. There’s never been a No. 5 seed to win a national championship at the NCAA Division I level — men’s or women’s — either.

Here’s some good news for the Southeast Division: two of its teams are going to the playoffs. Orlando is the No. 7 seed in the Eastern Conference, and Miami is the No. 8 seed.

Here's the bad news: the division combined to make the wrong kind of history this season.

The combined winning percentage of the five Southeast teams — Orlando, Atlanta, Miami, Charlotte and Washington — was .378, making it the worst record for any division in NBA history. The previous mark was .384 by teams in the Central Division in 1970-71.

Take away the 40-40 record that the division teams had against one another (obviously, one team won, one team lost each of those games), and the Southeast clubs went 115-215 against teams from the other five divisions.

Oklahoma City and the Los Angeles Clippers both went 10-0 against the Southeast this season. Portland and Memphis went 9-1.

Boston is in the playoffs for the 11th consecutive year, while Milwaukee is in for a ninth consecutive season and Denver has qualified in each of the last seven years. Miami is in for the sixth consecutive season.

Philadelphia's seven-year streak of playoff appearances ended.

Charlotte has now missed the playoffs in nine consecutive seasons, while San Antonio is out for the sixth consecutive year.

The streak continued last season when a pair of division champions — Boston and Dallas — made the NBA Finals.

Going back to 2012, every team that made the NBA Finals — with one exception — did so after winning a division championship that season. That exception: Golden State in 2022, when it beat Boston for the title.

If form holds this season, that means either Boston, Cleveland or Orlando will win the Eastern Conference, while Oklahoma City, Houston and the Los Angeles Lakers (tiebreaker winners over the Los Angeles Clippers) will win the Western Conference.

If the Clippers make the second round — or if he goes wild scoring in Round 1 — James Harden might move into the top 10 on the NBA's all-time scoring list when accounting for both regular season and playoff games.

Harden enters these playoffs at No. 11 with 31,451 combined points. That's 217 back of San Antonio great Tim Duncan for 10th on that list.

The Los Angeles Lakers’ LeBron James has league records for playoff games played, games won, games lost, points scored, field goals made, field goals attempted and steals.

If that doesn't clearly define his dominance, maybe this will help.

James enters these playoffs with 8,162 career postseason points. That's more than any two other players who are in these playoffs have combined; Stephen Curry and James Harden enter this postseason with a combined 7,730 points.

Oklahoma City was absolutely dominant this season with a 68-14 record and the biggest point differential in NBA history, 12.9 points per game.

The Thunder dominated in Las Vegas, too.

Oklahoma City covered 68% of the time as a favorite, according to BetMGM Sportsbook, this season — by far the best rate in the NBA over the last 10 seasons.

And this isn't a new thing for the Thunder. This was the third time in the last six seasons that OKC covered in more that 61% of its games. The rest of the league, combined, had three such seasons in that span.

If Golden State doesn't get swept by Houston, Warriors coach Steve Kerr will join a select club.

Kerr enters these playoffs with 99 postseason wins as coach of the Warriors (really, it's 100, but play-in games don't count in official NBA records).

That means Golden State's next win will officially give him 100 in the playoffs — and make him the fifth coach ever to win that many playoff games with one franchise.

Gregg Popovich has won 170 with San Antonio. Phil Jackson has done it twice; 118 with the Lakers and 111 with Chicago. Erik Spoelstra has won 110 playoff games in Miami and Spoelstra’s boss — Heat president Pat Riley — won 102 playoff games with the Lakers.

For the fourth time in the last five regular seasons, the NBA home winning percentage was 54%.

It’s almost eerie how consistent that number has been.

Over the last five seasons, the home winning percentages were .544 in 2020-21, .544 in 2021-22, .580 in 2022-23, .543 last season and .544 this season.

AP NBA: https://apnews.com/NBA

Los Angeles Lakers forward LeBron James, left, celebrates from the bench after the Lakers scored during the second half of an NBA basketball game against the Houston Rockets Friday, April 11, 2025, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — U.S. President Donald Trump said Iran wants to negotiate with Washington after his threat to strike the Islamic Republic over its bloody crackdown on protesters, a move coming as activists said Monday the death toll in the nationwide demonstrations rose to at least 544.

Iran had no immediate reaction to the news, which came after the foreign minister of Oman — long an interlocutor between Washington and Tehran — traveled to Iran this weekend. It also remains unclear just what Iran could promise, particularly as Trump has set strict demands over its nuclear program and its ballistic missile arsenal, which Tehran insists is crucial for its national defense.

Meanwhile Monday, Iran called for pro-government demonstrators to head to the streets in support of the theocracy, a show of force after days of protests directly challenging the rule of 86-year-old Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Iranian state television aired chants from the crowd, who shouted “Death to America!” and “Death to Israel!”

Trump and his national security team have been weighing a range of potential responses against Iran including cyberattacks and direct strikes by the U.S. or Israel, according to two people familiar with internal White House discussions who were not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

“The military is looking at it, and we’re looking at some very strong options,” Trump told reporters on Air Force One on Sunday night. Asked about Iran’s threats of retaliation, he said: “If they do that, we will hit them at levels that they’ve never been hit before.”

Trump said that his administration was in talks to set up a meeting with Tehran, but cautioned that he may have to act first as reports of the death toll in Iran mount and the government continues to arrest protesters.

“I think they’re tired of being beat up by the United States,” Trump said. “Iran wants to negotiate.”

He added: “The meeting is being set up, but we may have to act because of what’s happening before the meeting. But a meeting is being set up. Iran called, they want to negotiate.”

Iran through country's parliamentary speaker warned Sunday that the U.S. military and Israel would be “legitimate targets” if America uses force to protect demonstrators.

More than 10,600 people also have been detained over the two weeks of protests, said the U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency, which has been accurate in previous unrest in recent years and gave the death toll. It relies on supporters in Iran crosschecking information. It said 496 of the dead were protesters and 48 were with security forces.

With the internet down in Iran and phone lines cut off, gauging the demonstrations from abroad has grown more difficult. The Associated Press has been unable to independently assess the toll. Iran’s government has not offered overall casualty figures.

Those abroad fear the information blackout is emboldening hard-liners within Iran’s security services to launch a bloody crackdown. Protesters flooded the streets in the country’s capital and its second-largest city on Saturday night into Sunday morning. Online videos purported to show more demonstrations Sunday night into Monday, with a Tehran official acknowledging them in state media.

In Tehran, a witness told the AP that the streets of the capital empty at the sunset call to prayers each night. By the Isha, or nighttime prayer, the streets are deserted.

Part of that stems from the fear of getting caught in the crackdown. Police sent the public a text message that warned: “Given the presence of terrorist groups and armed individuals in some gatherings last night and their plans to cause death, and the firm decision to not tolerate any appeasement and to deal decisively with the rioters, families are strongly advised to take care of their youth and teenagers.”

Another text, which claimed to come from the intelligence arm of the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, also directly warned people not to take part in demonstrations.

“Dear parents, in view of the enemy’s plan to increase the level of naked violence and the decision to kill people, ... refrain from being on the streets and gathering in places involved in violence, and inform your children about the consequences of cooperating with terrorist mercenaries, which is an example of treason against the country,” the text warned.

The witness spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity due to the ongoing crackdown.

The demonstrations began Dec. 28 over the collapse of the Iranian rial currency, which trades at over 1.4 million to $1, as the country’s economy is squeezed by international sanctions in part levied over its nuclear program. The protests intensified and grew into calls directly challenging Iran’s theocracy.

Nikhinson reported from aboard Air Force One.

In this frame grab from video obtained by the AP outside Iran, a masked demonstrator holds a picture of Iran's Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi during a protest in Tehran, Iran, Friday, January. 9, 2026. (UGC via AP)

In this frame grab from footage circulating on social media from Iran shows protesters taking to the streets despite an intensifying crackdown as the Islamic Republic remains cut off from the rest of the world in Tehran, Iran, Friday, Jan. 9, 2026.(UGC via AP)

In this frame grab from footage circulating on social media from Iran showed protesters once again taking to the streets of Tehran despite an intensifying crackdown as the Islamic Republic remains cut off from the rest of the world in Tehran, Iran, Saturday Jan. 10, 2026. (UGC via AP)