Late‑season NBA squeeze
Even when a team wins its final regular‑season game, the bracket can still shift if rivals also win—the recent Lakers win was paired with a Nuggets victory that kept seeding in flux. (youtube.com) Highlight reels from the Lakers‑Jazz game and other final games are being used to parse matchup changes across the conference. (youtube.com)
The Los Angeles Lakers won their regular-season finale on April 12, but they still finished fourth in the Western Conference because the Denver Nuggets won too. (nba.com) The National Basketball Association entered Sunday with only two Western seeds unsettled at the top: No. 3 and No. 4 between Denver and Los Angeles. Denver clinched No. 3 with a win or a Lakers loss, while Los Angeles needed both a win and a Denver loss to move up. (nba.com) That is why the bracket stayed in motion until the last few hours of the 82-game schedule. A team could handle its own game and still wait on another arena’s scoreboard before knowing its first-round opponent and home-court status. (nba.com) The Lakers did their part with a 131-107 win over the Utah Jazz at Crypto.com Arena. Deandre Ayton scored 22 points with 10 rebounds, Rui Hachimura added 22 points, and Los Angeles shot 54.8% from the field. (nba.com) Denver matched that result with a 128-118 win over the San Antonio Spurs on the same day. Because both teams won, the Nuggets kept the No. 3 seed and drew the Minnesota Timberwolves, while the Lakers stayed No. 4 and drew the Houston Rockets. (espn.com, nba.com) The late squeeze was not limited to the top four. The National Basketball Association also listed No. 8 and No. 9 in the West as unresolved entering April 12, with the Portland Trail Blazers and Los Angeles Clippers still sorting out play-in position. (nba.com) By the end of the night, the Western bracket was set: Oklahoma City Thunder first, San Antonio Spurs second, Denver third, Los Angeles fourth, Houston fifth and Minnesota sixth. The play-in field became Phoenix Suns seventh, Portland eighth, Los Angeles Clippers ninth and Golden State Warriors tenth. (nba.com) That setup locked in two different paths. Portland visits Phoenix on April 14 in the seven-versus-eight play-in game, and Golden State visits the Clippers on April 15 in the nine-versus-10 game. (espn.com) The first full playoff bracket begins April 18, when Minnesota opens at Denver and Houston opens at Los Angeles. On the final day of the regular season, the Lakers won by 24 points and still could not move up a line. (espn.com, nba.com)
