The answer to the question is yes. The Athletic a month ago analyzed outcomes and advanced stats from 2008 upwards, concluding that playing well down the stretch matters. It doesn't guarantee success but the odds are in the favor of hot teams winning their opening series. You have to get out of the 1st round to win the cup and it's the 1st round where a lot of damage is done to cup contenders.
https://theathletic.com/881096/2019/...he-postseason/
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As it turns out, there is truth to the notion that coming in hot matters. Of the 80 first-round series to happen since 2008, the “hotter” team was expected to win 52 percent of its series based on the market price of each and won 59 percent instead. It’s a very small sample, but it signals that a team at its best might deserve extra consideration when it is facing a club that is struggling prior to the postseason. When the gap between hot or not gets wider, the difference gets larger, too, as the top half of the hot teams won 60 percent of their series when they were only expected to win 48 percent of the time.
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Based on this you can argue that the Jets (probably the biggest disparity between hot and not) in particular are in real trouble.