NBA panic meter -- Suns, Mavs, Heat and more playoff outlooks - ESPN

With less than a month until the end of the NBA regular season, the pressure is cranked to the max for a handful of teams that still feel they can make something out of this topsy-turvy campaign.

For others, such as the highly disappointing Philadelphia 76ers, whatever pressure was there before is now as low as it's been all season. The hobbled Dallas Mavericks, following perhaps the most shocking trade in NBA history, have been forced to look at their season differently, too.

Still, there are teams with enormous motivation — even after their highly uneven starts — to make noise as the postseason draws near. With that in mind, we analyzed the seven teams that have seen their playoff probabilities fall by at least 25% since the beginning of the season, according to ESPN's Basketball Power Index (BPI), spreading them into four tiers based on how much heat they're feeling in the final stretch.

Preseason playoff odds: 99%
Current playoff odds: 11.7%
Difference: -87.3%

If there's a team that's been more disappointing than the Sixers, it's likely Dallas, which entered the season with a 99% probability of reaching the playoffs out West. The expectation was more than fair: The Mavs were coming off a run to the Finals and had five-time All-NBA first-team selection Luka Doncic partnered in the backcourt with All-Star Kyrie Irving. What could possibly go wrong? Well, depending on how you viewed a certain trade that went down, plenty. Stunningly, Doncic is now a Los Angeles Laker. Anthony Davis is a Maverick. The reality is that Davis — injured in his Mavs debut — isn't available to play. Neither is Irving, who tore his ACL. Dereck Lively II, Daniel Gafford and P.J. Washington are all out of the lineup, too. Even with all that, Dallas