Top East seeds locked

Detroit finished Friday with the East’s top line already settled: the Pistons are 59-22 and locked into the No. 1 seed, while Boston is 55-26 and locked into No. 2 with one regular-season day left on April 12. (nba.com) That means the top half of the Eastern Conference bracket is no longer a mystery. Detroit will open against the eventual No. 8 seed, and Boston will open against the eventual No. 7 seed when the playoffs start on April 18. (nba.com) The No. 8 seed is not set because the National Basketball Association now uses a play-in tournament for seeds seven through 10. In the East, the current play-in field is Orlando at 45-36, Philadelphia at 44-37, Charlotte at 43-38, and Miami at 42-39. (nba.com) The format works like a step ladder. The seventh-place team plays the eighth-place team for the No. 7 seed, and the loser gets one more chance against the winner of the ninth-place versus 10th-place game for the No. 8 seed. (nba.com) Boston’s path got clearer on Friday night when it beat New Orleans 144-118 and clinched the Atlantic Division title. Detroit had already done the bigger piece of work a week earlier by beating Philadelphia 116-93 to secure the conference’s best record. (nba.com) (sports.yahoo.com) For Detroit, this is a franchise marker, not just a seeding update. The Pistons had not earned the East’s No. 1 seed since 2006-07, and Yahoo’s Detroit Free Press report noted that this surge came just two years after the worst season in franchise history. (sports.yahoo.com) The bracket around them is also mostly in place. New York is No. 3 at 53-28, Cleveland is No. 4 at 51-30, Atlanta is No. 5 at 46-35, and Toronto is No. 6 at 45-36, so the East already has two locked first-round series: Knicks versus Raptors and Cavaliers versus Hawks. (nba.com 1) (nba.com 2) What is left this weekend is less about the top and more about the traffic below it. Orlando and Philadelphia are lined up for the current 7-8 game, while Charlotte and Miami are lined up for the current 9-10 game, and one of those four teams will have to survive two play-in nights just to get Detroit. (nba.com) The calendar is tight from here. The regular season ends Sunday, April 12, the SoFi play-in tournament runs April 14 through April 17, and the full playoffs begin April 18. (nba.com) So the East’s top is done before the last day even starts: Detroit gets home-court advantage through the conference playoffs, Boston gets the other side of the bracket, and everybody below them is still fighting for the right to see them. (nba.com)