Play‑In starts Tuesday
The 2026 NBA Play‑In Tournament kicks off Tuesday with the teams that finished 7th–10th in each conference battling for the final two playoff spots. ( ) Six automatic playoff qualifiers per conference are already locked and sportsbooks have posted opening odds for confirmed first‑round series such as Lakers vs. Rockets. ( )
The National Basketball Association Play-In Tournament opens Tuesday, April 14, with eight teams chasing the last two playoff spots in each conference. (nba.com) The Eastern Conference field is set as Philadelphia 76ers at No. 7, Orlando Magic at No. 8, Charlotte Hornets at No. 9 and Miami Heat at No. 10. The Western Conference play-in teams are the Phoenix Suns, Portland Trail Blazers, Los Angeles Clippers and Golden State Warriors in that order. (nba.com) Tuesday’s games are Hornets-Heat at 7:30 p.m. Eastern time and Suns-Trail Blazers at 10 p.m. Eastern time. Wednesday’s games are Magic-76ers at 7:30 p.m. Eastern time and Warriors-Clippers at 10 p.m. Eastern time, and the tournament ends Friday, April 17. (nba.com) The format gives the No. 7 and No. 8 teams two chances to get in. The winner of each 7-versus-8 game becomes the No. 7 seed, while the loser hosts the winner of the 9-versus-10 game for the No. 8 seed. (nba.com) Six teams in each conference already skipped the play-in and locked first-round spots before the regular season ended Sunday, April 12. In the East, the Detroit Pistons, Boston Celtics, New York Knicks, Cleveland Cavaliers, Toronto Raptors and Atlanta Hawks are through; in the West, the Oklahoma City Thunder, San Antonio Spurs, Denver Nuggets, Los Angeles Lakers, Houston Rockets and Minnesota Timberwolves are in. (nba.com, usatoday.com) That leaves four first-round series already on the board for Saturday, April 18: Hawks-Knicks, Raptors-Cavaliers, Timberwolves-Nuggets and Lakers-Rockets. The two play-in winners in each conference will slide into the brackets against the No. 1 and No. 2 seeds. (nba.com, si.com) Sportsbooks have started pricing the confirmed series before the play-in is finished. DraftKings odds listed by Fox Sports on April 13 showed New York at minus-290 against Atlanta, Cleveland at minus-600 against Toronto and Denver at minus-350 against Minnesota. (foxsports.com) The Lakers-Rockets matchup is drawing early attention because Los Angeles finished fourth and Houston fifth at 53-29 and 52-30, and the teams split little in the standings even as the bracket separated them. National Basketball Association preview coverage also flagged injury uncertainty around Luka Doncic and Austin Reaves heading into the series. (nba.com, nba.com) All four play-in games will stream on Prime Video, and the full playoff field will be set by Friday night. The first round starts the next day, turning a four-night scramble for seeds into the standard 16-team bracket. (nba.com, nba.com)
