NBA’s final weekend

Sunday, April 12 is built like a scoreboard wall: all 30 teams play, the seven Eastern Conference games start at 3 p.m. Pacific Time, and the eight Western Conference and cross-conference games start at 5:30 p.m. Pacific Time, so half the league will be watching other arenas while its own season ends. (nba.com) The bracket is still moving because the National Basketball Association regular season ends Sunday, the SoFi Play-In Tournament starts April 14, and the full playoffs start April 18. Friday’s games locked in some spots, but they left enough ties and one-game gaps that one afternoon can still flip matchups. (nba.com 1) (nba.com 2) In the East, Detroit is already first at 59-22, Boston is second at 55-26, New York is third at 53-28, and Cleveland is fourth at 51-30. Atlanta is fifth at 46-35, while Toronto and Orlando are both 45-36, so the line between a guaranteed playoff series and the play-in is still only one game wide. (basketball-reference.com) That is why Toronto’s Friday loss to New York hurt so much: the Raptors stayed 45-36, Orlando beat Chicago to reach 45-36, and Philadelphia beat Indiana to move to 44-37. One bad night turned the East’s fifth-through-eighth traffic jam into a last-day sprint. (nba.com) (basketball-reference.com) The East play-in picture is also unstable at the bottom. Charlotte is ninth at 43-38 and Miami is tenth at 42-39, which means Miami still needs one more result swing to climb, while Orlando and Philadelphia are sitting in the 7-versus-8 game that gives the winner the seventh seed and the loser one more chance. (nba.com) (basketball-reference.com) In the West, Oklahoma City has already taken first at 64-17 and San Antonio has taken second at 62-19, but the middle is still loose. Denver is third at 53-28, the Los Angeles Lakers are fourth at 52-29, Houston is fifth at 51-30, and Minnesota is sixth at 48-33. (basketball-reference.com) (nba.com) Friday made the West messier, not cleaner. Denver beat Oklahoma City for its 10th straight win, Minnesota beat Houston 136-132, Portland beat the Los Angeles Clippers 116-97, Sacramento beat Golden State 124-118, and the Lakers beat Phoenix 101-73, so the race for third, fourth, fifth, eighth, ninth, and tenth all carried into Sunday. (espn.com) (nba.com) The sharpest knife-edge is eighth versus ninth in the West. Portland and the Clippers are both 41-40, and that one slot is the difference between needing one play-in win to reach the playoffs or needing two straight wins just to get in. (nba.com) (basketball-reference.com) Sunday’s schedule turns that into a direct showdown without calling it one. Golden State, which is tenth at 37-44, visits the Clippers, while Sacramento visits Portland, so the two teams tied for eighth will be finishing at the same time with the Warriors trying to keep their own season alive. (nba.com) (basketball-reference.com) Some things are already over. Seven teams have clinched playoff berths — Oklahoma City, San Antonio, the Lakers, Denver, Houston, Minnesota, Detroit, Boston, New York, Cleveland, and Atlanta — and 10 teams have already been eliminated, including Dallas, Memphis, New Orleans, Sacramento, Utah, Brooklyn, Chicago, Indiana, Milwaukee, and Washington. (nba.com) The final wrinkle is draft position, because teams that miss the postseason do not just go home, they slide into lottery odds. With Brooklyn at 20-61, Indiana at 19-62, Washington at 17-64, and Utah and Sacramento both at 22-59, Sunday is also the last day for the bottom of the league to gain or lose a few ping-pong-ball combinations before the draft lottery. (basketball-reference.com)