NBA seeding set
The NBA regular season finished with the Denver Nuggets securing the No. 3 seed in the West and the Los Angeles Lakers settling at No. 4, and the play-in tournament begins Tuesday. ( ). With the regular season complete, teams move from scenario-watching into the play-in and playoff matchups. (sports.yahoo.com)
The National Basketball Association playoff field is set, and the play-in tournament opens Tuesday with four games that will decide the No. 7 and No. 8 seeds. (nba.com) In the Western Conference, Oklahoma City finished first at 64-18, San Antonio second at 62-20, Denver third at 54-28, the Los Angeles Lakers fourth at 53-29, Houston fifth at 52-30, and Minnesota sixth at 49-33. (nba.com) The East locked in Detroit at 60-22, Boston at 56-26, New York at 53-29, Cleveland at 52-30, Toronto at 46-36, and Atlanta at 46-36. (nba.com) The play-in is a four-team mini-bracket in each conference: the No. 7 seed hosts the No. 8 seed for a playoff berth, and the No. 9 seed hosts the No. 10 seed in an elimination game. The loser of 7-versus-8 then gets one more chance against the winner of 9-versus-10 for the final playoff spot. (nba.com) That format leaves 10 of the 16 full playoff spots already assigned and puts eight teams into a three-day scramble before the first round starts on Saturday, April 18. (nba.com) This year’s Western play-in matchups are Phoenix against Portland in the 7-versus-8 game and the Los Angeles Clippers against Golden State in the 9-versus-10 game. In the East, Philadelphia faces Orlando in 7-versus-8, and Charlotte meets Miami in 9-versus-10. (nba.com) The first-round pairings that are already locked include Denver against Minnesota and the Lakers against Houston in the West, plus Cleveland against Toronto and New York against Atlanta in the East. The top two seeds in each conference are still waiting on play-in winners. (nba.com) Denver and the Lakers spent the final week trading places near the top of a crowded Western race, and Denver finished one game ahead in the standings. Basketball-Reference lists the Nuggets at 53-28 and the Lakers at 52-29 before the last results fully posted, while the league’s playoff bracket now shows Denver in third and the Lakers in fourth. (basketball-reference.com, nba.com) Tuesday starts the part of the season with no more scoreboard-watching or tiebreaker math. By Friday night, every first-round matchup will be filled in. (nba.com, espn.com)
