Play‑In slate tonight
Two headline games open the NBA play‑in this week — the Warriors face the Clippers and the 76ers meet the Magic — with the mini‑tournament running April 14–17 ahead of the first‑round playoffs. The format has No. 7 vs. No. 8 playing for the seventh seed while No. 9 vs. No. 10 is an elimination game, and the loser of 7/8 gets one more chance against the 9/10 winner for the eighth seed. All 20 postseason seeds are locked and the full bracket feeds into a Finals window that begins June 3 on ABC. (nbcsports.com) (cbssports.com)
The National Basketball Association play-in tournament opens Tuesday, April 14, with four teams fighting for two playoff spots before the first round starts Saturday. (nba.com) The bracket runs April 14 through April 17, and the league’s official schedule lists every game on Prime Video. Game 1 of the National Basketball Association Finals is set for June 3 on ABC. (nba.com) In the East, the Philadelphia 76ers finished 45-37 and drew the Orlando Magic, also 45-37, in the No. 7 versus No. 8 game on Wednesday, April 15 at 7:30 p.m. Eastern. The winner takes the seventh seed and a first-round series with the Boston Celtics. (nba.com) In the West, the Phoenix Suns and Portland Trail Blazers are the No. 7 and No. 8 teams, and the winner of that Tuesday game gets the seventh seed and a first-round matchup with the San Antonio Spurs. The Los Angeles Clippers, at 42-40, and Golden State Warriors, at 37-45, meet in the No. 9 versus No. 10 elimination game. (nba.com) The format gives the seventh- and eighth-place teams two chances to reach the playoffs. The ninth- and 10th-place teams must win twice, starting with a loser-go-home game. (nba.com) That structure was created to keep more teams in the postseason race late in the regular season without expanding the full playoff field beyond 16 teams. The play-in has been part of the league’s postseason setup since the 2020 bubble and became permanent in 2022. (britannica.com) The rest of the bracket is already fixed. In the East, the Detroit Pistons are the No. 1 seed at 60-22, with the Boston Celtics second, New York Knicks third and Cleveland Cavaliers fourth. (nba.com) In the West, the Oklahoma City Thunder earned the top seed at 64-18, followed by the San Antonio Spurs, Denver Nuggets and Los Angeles Lakers. The first round begins April 18, and the last two play-in winners will fill the No. 8 lines on Friday night. (nba.com) By the end of Friday, all 16 playoff teams will be set. From there, the postseason moves into the standard best-of-seven bracket that runs to the Finals in June. (nba.com)
