NBA teams
Tom Haberstroh, ESPN Staff Writer 9y

The Eastern Conference is back

NBA

In February, it wasn't just the home team that made a furious comeback. Take a look at what the Eastern Conference has been doing lately.

Weird things are happening in the NBA. With Wednesday bringing us six East versus West matchups, it's a golden opportunity to point out that the Eastern Conference isn't lying down and crying for mercy against its Western Conference counterparts anymore.

Tuesday night's nail-biter between the Atlanta Hawks and Houston Rockets was the conference battle in the nutshell. Houston jumped out to an early lead, but Atlanta came crawling back to close the gap and ended up pulling out the win. After a horrible start to the season, the East has basically played the West even over the last couple months and, according to the Bovada sportsbook, an Eastern Conference team -- not a Western Conference squad -- has the best odds of standing on top in the end.

In February, the East outscored the West in its 59 head-to-head matchups by 13 points. Thanks to some foibles late in games by the East, the West actually ended up having the superior record at 31-28, but it's clear the East isn't a laughingstock anymore. After it looked like the "Leastern Conference" was getting even worse after losing 73.1 percent of its games against the West last season, the East has returned to respectability lately.

What's causing the East surge? And should the title favorite really be coming out of the East? Let's dig into it.

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