NBA Play‑In tip‑off

The National Basketball Association postseason starts Tuesday, April 14, with the first two SoFi Play-In Tournament games deciding who stays alive for playoff spots. (nba.com) Charlotte hosts Miami at 7:30 p.m. Eastern time in the Eastern Conference 9-versus-10 game, and Phoenix hosts Portland at 10 p.m. Eastern time in the Western Conference 7-versus-8 game. Both games are listed on the league’s official play-in schedule. (nba.com) The play-in runs April 14 through April 17, and the first round of the National Basketball Association playoffs begins April 18. The league says all play-in games this year will stream exclusively on Prime Video. (nba.com) The format gives teams that finish seventh through 10th in each conference a final shot at the last two playoff berths. The seventh-place team plays the eighth-place team for the No. 7 seed, while the ninth-place team plays the 10th-place team in an elimination game. (nba.com) That setup puts more pressure on Miami and Charlotte immediately, because the loser is out Tuesday night. Phoenix and Portland get a cushion: the winner claims the West’s No. 7 seed, and the loser gets one more game for the No. 8 seed. (nba.com) The current bracket shows Philadelphia and Orlando in the other Eastern Conference play-in game, with the Hornets at No. 9 and Heat at No. 10. In the West, the Suns finished No. 7, the Trail Blazers No. 8, the Clippers No. 9 and the Warriors No. 10. (nba.com) The play-in has been part of the league’s postseason structure since the 2020-21 season, after a one-off version was used in the Florida campus restart in 2020. It was designed to keep more teams in contention late in the regular season and add a step before the standard 16-team bracket. (nba.com) By Friday night, four teams will have advanced out of the play-in and the full 2026 playoff field will be set. Saturday’s first-round openers start the bracket the tournament has been building toward since October. (nba.com)