NBA second round begins May 4

The NBA playoffs hit their real hinge point on Monday, May 4. The first round ended only hours earlier, and now the bracket is finally clean: Knicks vs. 76ers and Spurs vs. Timberwolves start tonight, while Pistons vs. Cavaliers and Thunder vs. Lakers open Tuesday. That matters because the field looks a lot less top-heavy than it did a week ago. Boston is gone, Detroit and Philadelphia both survived 3-1 holes, and the East suddenly looks messy in a fun way. ### Which games actually start tonight? Two Game 1s are on the board for Monday. Philadelphia opens at New York at 8 p.m. ET, and Minnesota opens at San Antonio at 9:30 p.m. ET. The other two semifinal series start Tuesday: Cleveland at Detroit at 7 p.m. ET, then the Lakers at Oklahoma City at 8:30 p.m. ET. ### How did the bracket change since Game 7 after trailing 3-1 in the series, and Cleveland beat Toronto 114-102 in another Game 7. Before that, Philadelphia pulled the real shocker by coming back from 3-1 to knock out Boston, the East’s No. 2 seed. Minnesota also took out Denver in six, which is why the West side suddenly has a very different shape too. ### Why does the East feel so open? Because the Celtics are out, and that changes the math for everybody. New York now gets a No. 7 seed instead of Boston, but that undersells how dangerous Philadelphia is after that comeback. Detroit is the No. 1 seed, yet it had to claw back from 3-1 just to get here. Cleveland also needed seven. Basically, none of the East semifinalists arrives looking invincible. ### Is Philadelphia the weirdest team left? Probably. A No. 7 seed usually feels like a nice story. This one feels more like a live grenade. Joel Embiid and Tyrese Maxey dragged the 76ers through a historic rivalry series against Boston, and that kind of comeback changes how everyone reads the bracket. The catch is that New York still has home court and entered this round with much shorter title odds than Philly. ### What about the West? The West still has a heavyweight at the top. Oklahoma City swept Phoenix 4-0 and comes in as the defending champion and the clear betting favorite. San Antonio looks like the other clean, strong team on that side after beating Portland 4-1. So the conference feels open in spots, but not equally open everywhere. The Thunder are still the team everyone else is being measured against. ### Are there injury issues hanging over this? Yes — especially in the West. ESPN’s preview flags Luka Dončić and Anthony Edwards as major health variables, and NBA.com had Edwards upgraded to questionable for Game 1 against San Antonio. That means two of the most explosive players in the bracket are entering the round with uncertainty attached, which can swing a series fast. or whether the road teams still have first-round chaos in them. Philadelphia just flipped a series against Boston. Minnesota just knocked out Denver. But the bigger test is whether that carries over once the matchups get cleaner and the scouting gets tighter. Second rounds are where surprise teams stop being cute and have to prove they’re actually good enough four more times. ### Bottom line The second round starts May 4 with a bracket that looks more unstable than usual — especially in the East. But one thing hasn’t changed: if you want to win the title, the path still seems to run through Oklahoma City.