On Saturday night, the Detroit Pistons are going to take the court at Madison Square Garden to go head-to-head with the New York Knicks.

This year, the Pistons have had plenty of success against the Knicks, especially on the road. In four matchups, the Knicks came up short all but one time, even dropping both of their games at home.

Still, the Knicks are the higher seed on Saturday heading into Game 1. The sportsbooks have them favored, and a prediction roundup of local and national publications suggests that the hoops world is not all that confident in the Pistons putting up a good enough fight to pull off the upset.

The Locals

The Detroit Free Press gathered predictions from three writers on staff. While there is a little bit of confidence in the hometown team winning, a 1-3 poll went in favor of the Knicks winning the series.

Looking at the New York Post, there isn’t any confidence in a Pistons upset. With six writers dishing out their thoughts, everybody picked the Pistons to be one-and-done, giving the Knicks a clean sweep with all six votes in their favor.

The National

ESPN’s results had Pistons fans embracing the underdog mentality all week. With 11 votes being placed, not a single one went in favor of the Pistons. The national media still seems to be treating the Pistons more like a feel-good story, less like a real playoff contender.

Being in the playoffs for the first time since the 2020s started, the Pistons are the new kids on the block once again. Since they are a young team facing a seasoned squad with multiple All-Stars on it, there’s are a lot of skeptics out there, who believe the moment might be a little too big for Cade Cunningham and his team right now.

The only way to find out if that’s true or not is to see how the series plays out. For what it’s worth, not many are predicting a sweep—not even the gentleman’s kind. In fact, Detroit has received a lot of support as a team that is expected to wear down the Knicks in round one with their grit and grind style. The skepticism comes from the young team’s ability to finish.

The Pistons and the Knicks will begin Game 1 at 6 PM ET on Saturday.

More Pistons on SI

The Milwaukee Bucks will be taking on the Indiana Pacers as the NBA postseason gets started. The Pacers hold home-court advantage entering this series, putting Milwaukee at a minor disadvantage right away.

But the Bucks believe that they can compete with the Pacers in this series, and they are using last season as the main motivation. The Pacers took down Milwaukee in the playoffs last year, winning in six games, so the Bucks will be out for some redemption this time around.

However, the Bucks will be without star guard Damian Lillard for the start of this playoff series. Lillard has been dealing with a serious blood clot issue for the past few weeks and will miss at least Game 1 of the series.

Lillard has been cleared to return to the court, but he is still ramping things up to return. The star guard will miss Game 1 of the series, but could always make his return down the line.

More Bucks news: Predicting When Bucks’ Damian Lillard Will Be Available in Playoffs

The star guard opened up about it all just before the start of the playoffs.

“Obviously there’s people with way worse issues than I’ve dealt with, so I don’t want to be dramatic about it, but you just never know when something could come up and change your life,” Lillard said Friday. “It’s been guys like Chris Bosh who dealt with this and then it’s another issue and it could be a career-ending thing, so I think you just can’t take days and opportunities and things in your life for granted.”

If the Bucks can get Lillard back within the first few games of this playoff series, it could change everything. Milwaukee wants to make a statement against the Pacers, and Lillard could help them do just that.

The Bucks took three of four games from the Pacers during the regular season this year, all with Lillard in the lineup. If the Bucks want to advance in the postseason, they will need a total team effort, whether Lillard eventually rejoins them sometime during the playoffs.

More Bucks news:

Bucks’ Giannis Antetokounmpo Talks Massive Pressure to Win Second Championship

Bucks’ Giannis Antetokounmpo Uses Tom Cruise to Explain Playoff Plan

Bucks’ Bobby Portis Addresses Challenges Faced This Season Before Playoff Push

For more news and notes on the Milwaukee Bucks, head on over to Milwaukee Bucks on SI.

MINNEAPOLIS (FOX 9) – Across the state, sunshine will be in abundance Saturday with high temperatures that will be just shy of seasonable in the mid-50s.

Saturday forecast

What to expect:

Saturday will be sunny and quiet with seasonable temperatures throughout the day. 

Some light wind will keep temperatures cooler even with the sun. 

The Twin Cities will have a high of 56 degrees, while the rest of the state will have high temperatures in the mid to low 50s and some 40s in northern Minnesota. 

Easter forecast and beyond

What’s next:

On Easter Sunday our pattern changes again as April showers are back in store for portions of the state. 

The day will still start off with sunshine statewide with high temperatures climbing to the low 60s. 

Morning and early afternoon activities will remain dry, but from the south, cloud cover will increase with the chance of rain showers by late afternoon. Rain showers will mainly impact the southeastern portion of the state, including the metro, with up to half an inch of rain, and isolated accumulations of over an inch possible.

Next week, we continue an active pattern. Monday morning rain showers will come to an end during the pre-dawn hours and sunshine will make its return. 

However, several rounds of rain will be monitored throughout the week. As for temperatures, an April-like trend will hold seasonable conditions with the upper 50s to 60s expected. 

Here is your seven-day forecast: