Two Games Left: Playoff Scramble

Friday is one of those rare National Basketball Association nights where all 30 teams play, and with the regular season ending on April 12, almost every game now changes who gets a week off and who gets shoved into a sudden-death detour. The top six teams in each conference go straight to the playoffs, while teams ranked seventh through tenth get sent to the Play-In Tournament on April 14 through April 17. (nba.com) In the Eastern Conference, the clean part of the bracket is already mostly set: the Detroit Pistons are first, the Boston Celtics are second, the New York Knicks are third, and the Cleveland Cavaliers are fourth. The mess starts below them, where the Atlanta Hawks, Toronto Raptors, Orlando Magic, Philadelphia 76ers, Charlotte Hornets, and Miami Heat are packed into the fifth-through-tenth range. (espn.com) That cluster matters because fifth and sixth get a normal seven-game series, but seventh and eighth have to survive the Play-In Tournament, and ninth and tenth have to win twice in three days just to reach the bracket. The East standings entering Friday had Atlanta at 45-35, Toronto at 44-35, Orlando at 44-36, Philadelphia at 43-36, Charlotte at 43-37, and Miami at 41-38. (espn.com) The Western Conference is even tighter because the line between a home playoff series and a play-in game runs straight through the middle of the standings. Oklahoma City is first at 64-16, San Antonio is second at 61-19, and then Denver, the Los Angeles Lakers, Houston, and Minnesota are all fighting over seeds three through six. (espn.com) Below them, Phoenix, the Los Angeles Clippers, Portland, and Golden State are sitting in the play-in spots, but the order still matters a lot. Seventh gets one home game and needs one win to advance, while ninth has no safety net and is eliminated with a single loss. (nba.com) The official National Basketball Association play-in page showed the West on Friday morning as Phoenix at 44-36, the Clippers at 41-39, Portland at 40-40, and Golden State at 37-43. That same page showed the East play-in field as Orlando at 44-36, Philadelphia at 43-37, Charlotte at 43-37, and Miami at 41-39 if the season ended today. (nba.com) Friday’s schedule is wall-to-wall because the league likes the final weekend to force everyone to show their cards at once instead of letting teams react one by one. The regular season ends Sunday, April 12, the first play-in games begin Tuesday, April 14, and the first round starts Saturday, April 18. (nba.com) That timing changes how teams use stars, because there is almost no buffer left between “push for seed” and “save legs for next week.” ESPN’s playoff watch noted that Boston could clinch the second seed, while Philadelphia’s odds of avoiding the play-in had dropped to 2.9 percent and Joel Embiid was ruled out after an appendicitis diagnosis. (espn.com) The play-in itself is built like a ladder with one extra rung for the teams that finish higher. The seventh-place team hosts the eighth-place team for the right to become the seventh seed, while the ninth-place team hosts the tenth-place team in an elimination game, and then the loser of the 7-versus-8 game plays the winner of the 9-versus-10 game for the eighth seed. (sports.yahoo.com) By Sunday night, the bracket will finally stop moving and the scoreboard watching will turn into actual matchups. Then the calendar speeds up: the National Basketball Association Finals are scheduled to open on June 3, with Game 7, if needed, set for June 17. (nba.com)