Play‑In starts April 14
The NBA’s play‑in tournament — where late‑season positioning is decided in short, high‑stakes games — begins Tuesday, April 14, and will determine seeds seven and eight via a 7-vs-8 game with the loser getting one more chance against the winner of 9-vs-10. (usatoday.com)
The National Basketball Association’s postseason really starts on Tuesday, April 14, because four teams in each conference still have to fight for the last two playoff spots after the regular season ends on Sunday, April 12. The league has the SoFi Play-In Tournament set for April 14 through April 17, with the full playoffs opening on April 18. (nba.com 1) (nba.com 2) This is the part of the bracket built for teams that finish seventh, eighth, ninth, and tenth in the standings instead of the top six. Seventh plays eighth for the No. 7 seed, while ninth plays tenth in an elimination game that keeps only one team alive. (nba.com) (usatoday.com) The twist is that seventh and eighth get a safety net that ninth and tenth do not. The loser of the 7-versus-8 game gets one more home game against the winner of 9-versus-10, and that final winner becomes the No. 8 seed. (nba.com) (dispatch.com) That means a seventh-place team can reach the playoffs by winning once, while a ninth-place or tenth-place team has to win twice in three days. It is not a full mini-tournament so much as a pressure test that rewards finishing higher without fully locking the door on teams just outside the bracket. (nba.com) (usatoday.com) The format is still new by National Basketball Association standards. The league first used a play-in setup in the 2020 restart at Walt Disney World, then adopted it as a permanent postseason feature beginning with the 2020-21 season. (nba.com) (britannica.com) It changed the value of the last week of the regular season because teams now chase three different finish lines instead of one. Sixth place avoids the play-in entirely, seventh and eighth get a cushion, and ninth and tenth just try to stay above eleventh before the schedule runs out on April 12. (nba.com 1) (nba.com 2) As of April 9, the National Basketball Association’s own playoff page shows the Orlando Magic and Philadelphia 76ers in the East play-in spots at seventh and eighth, with the Charlotte Hornets and Miami Heat at ninth and tenth. In the West, it shows the Phoenix Suns and Los Angeles Clippers at seventh and eighth, with the Portland Trail Blazers and Golden State Warriors at ninth and tenth. (nba.com 1) (nba.com 2) Those matchups are not final because teams still have regular-season games left before Sunday night. The league’s live standings page updates the bracket daily, so a team can still climb out of the play-in or fall into it based on the last few games. (nba.com) (nba.com) Once the play-in ends on Friday, April 17, the bracket locks and the first round starts the next day. By then, the only teams still standing from this four-team scramble in each conference will be the ones that grabbed the seventh and eighth seeds the hard way. (nba.com) (nba.com)
