Play‑In schedule released

The National Basketball Association just put a clock on the season’s messiest race: the 2026 Play-In Tournament runs from Tuesday, April 14, through Friday, April 17, and all six games will stream on Prime Video. The regular season ends on Sunday, April 12, so bubble teams now know they have two days between Game 82 and the start of the win-or-go-home round. (nba.com 1) (nba.com 2) (aboutamazon.com) The play-in is the National Basketball Association’s mini-tournament for teams that finish seventh through tenth in each conference. The seventh-place team hosts the eighth-place team for the No. 7 seed, and the ninth-place team hosts the tenth-place team in an elimination game. (nba.com) One more game decides the last spot. The loser of the 7-versus-8 game gets a second chance at home against the winner of the 9-versus-10 game, and that winner becomes the No. 8 seed in the playoffs. (nba.com) That setup is why the last week of the standings matters so much. A team that climbs from tenth to ninth gets a home floor for its first game, and a team that climbs from ninth to eighth goes from sudden death to having two chances to get in. (nba.com) Prime Video is not just carrying a random slice of the postseason here. Amazon’s 11-year National Basketball Association deal made Prime Video the exclusive streaming home for the play-in, part of a package that also includes 66 regular-season games and later-round playoff games in the United States. (aboutamazon.com 1) (aboutamazon.com 2) Amazon has spent the season building the rest of that package around these nights. Its 2025-26 guide says Prime Video’s first National Basketball Association season included a new studio show and a talent lineup with Candace Parker, Dwyane Wade, and Dirk Nowitzki, so the play-in arrives as a showcase rather than a test run. (aboutamazon.com 1) (aboutamazon.com 2) The bracket is still moving because it is only Thursday, April 9. On the National Basketball Association’s live 2026 play-in page today, the Western Conference line is Suns at No. 7, Clippers at No. 8, Trail Blazers at No. 9, and Warriors at No. 10, while the Eastern Conference line is Magic at No. 7, 76ers at No. 8, Hornets at No. 9, and Heat at No. 10. (nba.com) Those names can still change before Sunday because several teams are packed tightly together in the standings. The league’s official play-in page labels the bracket “if the 2025-26 regular season ended today,” which is the National Basketball Association’s way of saying the schedule is fixed but most of the matchups are not. (nba.com) The timing also squeezes the calendar hard. The play-in ends Friday, April 17, and the first round of the playoffs starts the next day, Saturday, April 18, so the teams that survive this extra round get almost no reset before facing the No. 1 and No. 2 seeds. (nba.com) That is why this release lands now instead of after the standings settle. Coaches can plan travel, broadcasters can lock windows, and teams sitting around seventh through tenth can now see the exact four-day funnel that stands between an ordinary regular season finish and a playoff series. (nba.com) (aboutamazon.com)