Play‑In starts April 14

The National Basketball Association built the Play-In Tournament to make the last week of the regular season matter, and this year it runs from Tuesday, April 14, through Friday, April 17, with the regular season ending on April 12 and the full playoffs opening on April 18. (nba.com 1) (nba.com 2) Only teams ranked seventh through tenth in each conference get in, so a club that spends six months chasing the sixth seed is really chasing a way to avoid this four-day sprint entirely. (nba.com 1) (nba.com 2) The seventh-place team plays the eighth-place team for the seventh playoff seed, which means one win gets you into the main bracket and one loss still leaves you a second chance. (nba.com) (usatoday.com) The ninth-place team plays the tenth-place team in a straight elimination game, so the loser is done that night and the winner has to beat one more team just to grab the eighth seed. (nba.com) (usatoday.com) That setup gives seventh and eighth a safety net and gives ninth and tenth no margin at all, which is why one game in the standings on April 9 can decide whether a team needs one win or two. (nba.com) (northjersey.com) As of April 9 on the National Basketball Association’s playoff page, the Western Conference play-in line showed the Phoenix Suns in seventh at 43-36, the Los Angeles Clippers in eighth at 41-38, the Portland Trail Blazers in ninth at 40-40, and the Golden State Warriors in tenth at 37-42. (nba.com) The Eastern Conference line on that same page showed the Orlando Magic in seventh at 44-36, the Philadelphia 76ers in eighth at 43-36, the Charlotte Hornets in ninth at 43-37, and the Miami Heat in tenth at 41-38. (nba.com) Those are not locked brackets yet, because the National Basketball Association says the page reflects what the field would look like “if the 2025-26 regular season ended today,” and there are still games left before April 12. (nba.com 1) (nba.com 2) That is why the games between now and Sunday are not dead schedule filler: a team sitting eighth can jump to sixth and skip the play-in, while a team sitting seventh can slide to ninth and lose its second-chance cushion. (nba.com) (cbssports.com) The league adopted this format permanently after using it in the pandemic restart and then in the 2020-21 season, and the sales pitch was simple: keep more teams competing, keep fewer front offices tanking, and turn the bottom of the bracket into appointment television. (nba.com) By next Friday, four teams will have played their way into the real bracket, and two first-round series in each conference will suddenly have opponents that were unknown a week earlier. (nba.com) (nba.com)